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1860-1905 


Colorado Iron Works 

«' «v t - - 

Company 


DESIGN AND BUILD 

Ore-Smelting Equipments, Ore-Milling 
Machinery, Complete Ore- 
Reduction Plants 


MAIN OFFICE AND WORKS 
33d and Wynkoop Streets 


CITY SALES OFFICE 
<U 5 17th Street 


DENVER - COLORADO 

= U. S. A.—— 


JOHN W. NESMITH, President JOHN H. MORCOM, Vice-Pres. and Supt. 

MRS. ISABEL NESMITH EVANS, Treas. and Sec'y 
JAS. P. EVANS, Auditor 







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COPY b. 


PLANT OF COLORADO IRON WORKS COMPANY. 















COLORADO IRONWORKS COMR\NY 


ORE SMELTING MILLING 

[ EQUIPMENTS MACHINERY 


CATALOGUE No. 12 


Some Details As To Smelting 
Practice and Equipments 


FOR THE REDUCTION OF GOLD, SILVER, 
LEAD AND COPPER ORES 

Fifth Edition Revised, June, 1905 


Containing Important Notes and Data in Regard to Modern 
Blast Furnace Smelting, Illustrating the Various Types of 
Furnaces and Equipments as Built by the Colorado Iron 
Works Company, and now in Successful Operation in Almost 
all Parts of the World where Smelting is Carried on to 
to any Extent; the Design and Construction of Plants, with 
Brief Articles Relating to or Descriptive of the Smelting 
of Ores. 







INTRODUCTORY 



OR OVER twenty-live years we have been en¬ 
gaged in the business of designing and building 
smelting furnaces and plants, stamp mills, con¬ 
centration mills, and treatment plants of every 
description for the reduction of ores. Situated 
in the most progressive and populous city of the great mining 
state of Colorado, we have the advantage of keeping in the 
closest touch with the most eminent mining engineers and 
metallurgists, and from the extended experience we have had 
through all these years in building ore-treatment plants we are 
especially litted to advise our customers as to the best way to 
proceed in designing and erecting plants or mills adapted to 
treat their ores most efficiently and economically. We have 
always, however, made a specialty of designing and building 
the most modern smelting furnaces and equipping them with 
the latest improved devices. Our proximity to many large 
smelting plants gives us unequaled opportunities for observing 
the practical side of smelting, and our line of machinery is based 
on scientific principles for practical application. 

Parties contemplating the erection of smelting plants are 
invited to look over our drawings to aid them in forming their 
ideas as to what may be required. We have on file a great 
many plans of contemplated plants and complete plants now in 
operation, and also details of furnaces and equipments, which 
will be of great help to them to examine. We cordially invite 
our correspondents and clients to freely avail themselves of our 
experience and beg to assure them that the suggestions and 
advice of our engineers and metallurgists are always at their 
command. 

Colorado Iron Works Co. 


Denver , Colorado, June, 1905. 







Important Notice 


The designing' and building of smelting plants involves the ex¬ 
penditure of large sums of money, and the only safety against loss 
from faulty design and construction is to entrust such important com¬ 
mission to manufacturing engineers of reputation, responsibility and 
of large experience in furnace building, who understand the metal¬ 
lurgical as well as the mechanical principles involved, and who will 
stand behind and guarantee the equipments they make, to be thor¬ 
oughly adapted for smelting efficiently and economically the ores they 
are intended to treat. 

Millions of dollars and months and even years of time have been 
squandered by entrusting to incompetent men the designing and build¬ 
ing of large plants that have failed disastrously and have had to be 
rebuilt at great expense. All have heard of such failures, and many 
have suffered thereby. 

The mechanical parts of a smelting plant are its most important 
features, as the whole operation of smelting depends thereon. The 
smelting process is the chemical or metallurgical feature and will 
stand for naught if the furnaces and equipments are not made on 
proper lines. It is only the trained mechanical engineer, familiar with 
this line of work, who also understands the metallurgy of smelting, 
who is competent to design a smelting furnace or plant that will be 
free from errors and right when completed. 

We are manufacturers of machinery for the reduction of ores 
carrying copper, lead and the precious metals, and, as stated, smelting 
equipments have been our special study for over twenty-five years. We 
make a specialty of building by contract smelting plants, complete, 
and starting them up and smelting a thousand or ten thousand tons 
of ore, more or less, to demonstrate that all is right for continuous 
business, and if desired we will recommend capable metallurgists to 
take charge of the plants after they are built. In cases where our 
customers prefer to erect their own plants we design and build the 
furnaces and equipments, and furnish complete drawings for guidance 
in erecting, also competent men to do this work. If contemplating 
smelting operations we will be glad to assist you in any way we can, 
— correspond with 11s. 




i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Smelting an Exact Science 

The designing and building of the plant, and the smelting of the 
ores of silver-lead, gold and copper, in the modern blast furnace, has 
been brought, after years of experiment by expert metallurgists and 
mechanical engineers, to an exact science, and exact results are fore¬ 
told from quantitative analyses, in the laboratory, of the various con¬ 
stituents of the ore. 

The furnace charge is made up by proportioning the various con¬ 
stituents of ore, fuel and fluxes, according to their respective chemical 
analyses, in such manner as that the mixture shall produce a suitably 
fluid slag that shall flow away freely and allow the precious and valu¬ 
able metals to settle to the bottom, in a greater or less proportion of 
impurity still, but largely freed from the great mass of slag-forming 
constituents of the ores and fluxes, as silica, lime, iron, etc. 

Quantitative analysis of its constituents determines definitely the 

. .. l . of ?ny ore to smelting methods and it is only by such 

''iwlvsis that the question of whether any given ore is best suited to 
smelting or otherwise can be determined. 

The science of smelting is chiefly the art of producing the neces¬ 
sary chemical reactions and forming fluid, free-flowing slag, and the 
practicability of forming such slag from any given ores is accurately 
determined by a quantitative chemical analysis of the constituents of 
such ores, and by such means only. 

The manner of mixing ores for the furnace charge, by so propor¬ 
tioning* them according to physical conditions and chemical analysis 
of constituents as that, when smelted down, they shall form such fluid 
slag, is definitely and clearly understood by competent metallurgists, 
and there is no uncertainty as to results when ores, fuel and fluxes 
are properly proportioned, and the furnace built of suitable material 
properly proportioned as to its various parts, properly charged and 
properly blown. There is no contingent uncertainty, no glamour of 
mystery involving the process, but all works out and results in a sav¬ 
ing of values according to previous calculation of the competent metal¬ 
lurgist, when conditions as above named have been complied with and 
the smelting furnace is managed by a competent superintendent. 

It is clear from the foregoing statement of conditions that, as a 
business proposition, there is no possible excuse for building a smelt¬ 
ing plant with the purpose of smelting ores that are unsuited to the 


6 


r86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


smelting method. If to each ton of ore to be smelted must be added a 
half a ton or a ton of barren duxes in order to form a fluid slag that 
shall flow away freely, then the cost of smelting the ore will be the 
cost of smelting the ore and fluxes combined. If to the ton of ore 
must be added half a ton of barren flux, then the cost of smelting this 
ore and flux will be practically one and a half times as much as though 
the ore was self fluxing, or required no added flux. Thus, if it cost 
four dollars a ton to smelt the self fluxing* ore, then approximately 
would smelting a ton of ore and a half a ton of added fluxes cost six 
dollars. If a self fluxing ore carried eight dollars of values, and cost 
four dollars a ton to smelt, and the other four dollars would pay a 
profit on its production from the mine, then manifestly it might be 
a paying business to mine and smelt such ore; but if a ton of ore 
carrying eight dollars of values required a ton of fluxes to make a 
practicable smelting mixture, and the cost of smelting the whole—the 
ore and the necessary fluxes—was four dollars a ton, or eight dollars 
for a ton of ore and a ton of the necessary fluxes, then manifestly the 
proposition would be commercially impossible, for there would be 
nothing left after paying cost of smelting to pay for mining the ore 
and delivering it to the smelter. 


Blast Furnaces for Smelting Silver- 
Lead and Copper Ores 


Quantitative analysis of ores must be had in order to name size 
of furnace required for a given tonnage capacity. 



A 30-ton furnace is the smallest practicable and only adapted to 
smelting* a few unusual ores. 1 he daily tonnage capacity, that is to 
say the amount of ore that a furnace of any given size will smelt in 
any given time, is wholly dependent on the characteristics of the ore in 
the proportions of its various constituents. Note particularly, how¬ 
ever, that no furnace can he operated successfully on less than about 
tons per day of charge, including ores and fluxes, and there are few 
copper ores than can be run down to so low a quantity as 30 tons. 
When a furnace of any given capacity, from 30 tons per day upward, 


7 


i86o —Colorado Iron Works Co. — i 9°5 

is enquired for we gladly give all information as to what furnace is re¬ 
quired and what it will cost erected complete in any locality, and what 
it will cost per ton to smelt any given ore; but we must have full in¬ 
formation about the character of the ore to be smelted, cost of fuel, 
labor, etc. 

The science of smelting gold, copper and silver-lead ores for their 
metals consists essentially in bringing about the appropriate chemical 
reactions to effect separation and making fluid slag, whereby these valu¬ 
able or precious metals may settle to the bottom while the slag flows 
away. First of all, then, it is necessary to know the various slag-form¬ 
ing constituents of the ore. Quantitative analysis must be had of all 
and each one of the constituents aggregating as much as three per 
cent, of the whole, and with this knowledge and that of fuel, quality 
and cost, labor cost, etc., full information can be given as to capacity 
of any given sized furnace, cost per ton of smelting the ore and prob¬ 
able losses of values, if any. The smelting of ores is an exact science. 
With the information as above, exact results are foretold. There is 
no mystery about the smelting of ores and no uncertainty. Correct 
knowledge is the absolute pre-requisite. 

Refining Plants 

While this pamphlet pertains chiefly to smelting furnaces and machinery 
used in direct connection therewith we would say that we have a perfect equip¬ 
ment and various designs of plants for the desilverization of base lead bullion, 
and Bessermerizing plants for the conversion of copper mattes to metallic or 
blister copper. 

We are prepared to furnish complete plants in the Bessemerizing, in¬ 
cluding blowing engines, electric traveling cranes, silica crushing machinery, 
hydraulic pressure tanks and pumps, horizontal or trough type converters, etc. 
In the desilverizing plants all necessary kettles, softening and merchant lead 
kettles, cupelling and Faber du Faur zincing furnaces, and Howard’s latest 
improved stirring device and alloy press. 

We have plans of the latest and most economical refining plants, although 
will gladly quote prices on special designs from drawings or sketches or spec¬ 
ifications furnished us. 

As refining plants are really an institution by themselves, we invite cor¬ 
respondence for prices, specifications and full information. 


8 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Blast Furnaces 

We began building blast furnaces for smelting gold, silver, lead 
and copper ores, in 1879, an d this line of manufacture has been a 
specialty with us since that time. Then the smelting of ores for their 
values in gold and silver was in its infancy, and other than the carbon¬ 
ate ores of the Leadville region were seldom treated in the blast fur¬ 
nace. The furnaces were small and very crude and inefficient as com¬ 
pared with the great equipments of the present time. Important im¬ 
provements have been made in the science of smelting and in the de¬ 
sign and construction of the furnace. We have followed carefully all 
improvements through their different stages, and are fully abreast 
with the best practice of to-day. In fact, many of these improvements 
are our own, and their general use is sufficient evidence of their im¬ 
portance. The iron work of more than half of all the silver-lead 
furnaces in the West was made by us, and now more than four-fifths 
of all the smelters, from Montana to the City of Mexico, are our cus¬ 
tomers. 

Our reputation as builders of smelting furnaces has not been con¬ 
fined to our own country, but foreign metallurgists evidently ap¬ 
preciate the superiority of American practice, as witness the furnaces 
we have built for foreign countries, including England, Tasmania, 
Australia, the Island of Java, Mexico, Belgium, Nova Scotia, British 
Columbia, Greece, Cuba, etc. 

In this connection it is proper to say that we are fully prepared 
to build furnaces to any design that may be furnished us for either 
lead or copper smelting, or copper matting, and that we are in no sense 
confined to our own ideas as to the best designs nor to those in gen¬ 
eral use in some localities, as illustrated in this pamphlet. It is very 
common for changes to be made in existing designs or entire new plans 
to be furnished us to build furnaces by, to conform, to the ideas of 
customers. We are always glad to execute such orders, as we have 
ever been, for improvements are often thus introduced, and it is our 
desire always to be in the first rank in the march of improvement in 
methods and appliances. 

In silver-lead furnaces the water jackets are often made of cast 
iron in sections about four and a half feet high, and eighteen or twenty 
inches wide. Of such sizes cast iron jackets can be made to stand as 
well and last as long as those made of steel plates; and of such sizes 


9 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

jacket sections can be replaced, when necessary, in half an hour, with¬ 
out blowing out the furnace. All jackets of steel plate are preferable, 
however. 

In copper matting furnaces it is best to water jacket all or most 
of the way from hearth to feed floor, and to do this with cast iron of 
sizes as above necessitates putting them in two high, or one series 
above another; this, together with the comparatively narrow widths, 
involves a good deal of complication in the piping and drainage, or 
overflow. For these reasons it is preferable to build all furnaces of 
flange steel plates, in sections 4 feet to 5 feet wide, and in single 
lengths, each section extending from the hearth to near the feed floor, 
usually 8 or 10 feet. 

Cold water should never enter the jackets at the hottest point, 
which is at or near the bottom, but should be supplied at their tops, 
discharging the heated water also at the top, which ensures efficient 
circulation; the difference in specific gravity as between hot and cold 
water does this effectually. If cold water is supplied at the 
bottom, a cast-iron section is much more apt to be broken or a steel 
one to be distorted and set leaking. As a measure of safety it is well 
to connect all jacket sections together by means of hose or pipe in 
sections of length equal to the width of the jacket sections, extending 
around the whole and attaching to each jacket section by means of a 
”T” and nipple. This ensures a supply of water from the others to 
any jacket, the regular water supply of which at the top may be tem¬ 
porarily cut off by accident or otherwise. 

The best possible system of supplying water to jackets, whether 
for overflow or for evaporation, is that adapted for vaporizing jacket 
water, illustrated and described elsewhere in this pamphlet (under 
head of “Vaporizing Jacket Water”) because that system insures water 
to all jackets so long as any of them have it, and it ensures further 
that no shortage can in any manner endanger the jackets or affect the 
working of the furnace until amount needed for overflow has fallen 
to one-eighth the normal amount, Jackets have sometimes been sun- 
plied with water through each other, the water entering those in one 
end of the furnace passing thence through from section to section to 
the other end. This method is most objectionable in that all the water 
of the whole furnace passes through the first sections and keeps them 
much cooler than those at the other end, and much cooler than they 
should be kept. Again, that manner of supplying water contributes 
only to horizontal circulation across the jacket sections, which is not 
needed, and not at all to vertical circulation, which is most important 

10 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


1905 


and is accomplished very effectually as before stated, by introducing 
the cold water at the tops of the jackets. 

In lead furnaces steel arch bar girders now take the place of the 
old style mantel plates and of the later I-beam mantels, both of which 
styles had their serious objections in that it was not possible to protect 
them from destruction by the furnace lining burning away and expos¬ 
ing them to intense heat. In this system of silver-lead furnaces, the 
red brick walls are carried wholly by the arch bars, and inside them 
come angle bars and plates under the fire brick lining of the furnace. 
When the lining burns thin, these plates on the angle bars will heat 
and may spring somewhat, but as they are entirely independent of the 
main girders that carry the walls, no damage is done to the main struc¬ 
ture and all there is to be done is to renew the lining where it has 
burned out, which is usually but for a short distance above the jackets. 
With the old style cast-iron mantel plates carrying the main brick 
walls of the furnace, and which had to be wide enough to also carry the 
fire brick lining, there was always the certainty that when the fire 



ILLUSTRATION SHOWING METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION OF STEEL ARCFI-BAR 
GIRDER SYSTEM FOR THE SUPPORT OF BRICK WALLS AND LIN¬ 
ING OF FURNACES. (PATENTED 1893.) 


11 

































i86o— Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


brick lining was allowed to burn too thin, the inner edge of the wide 
mantel would heat and spring, cracking and shattering the main walls, 
and would often of itself break, involving thus the not inconsiderable 
cost and delay of repair to walls and replacement with a new mantel. 
I-beam mantels are subject to the same difficulty, and being deeper 
vertically than the cast-iron mantel the trouble is aggravated. We 
have applied the arch bar system of mantels in most of the silver-lead 
smelting furnaces that we have built within the last ten years, and not 
one in that time has given the slightest trouble, nor ever will. In some 
of recent construction, we have introduced water jacket girders, car¬ 
ried by the main corner columns of the furnace. These water girders 
take the place of the auxiliary upper jackets often required above the 
main jackets, and support the furnace lining instead of allowing it to 
rest on the main jackets as in the case where the ordinary auxiliary 
jackets are used or instead of being suspended from above by a 



illustration showing method of construction of steel 


A RCT.I 


I.AK GTRDER SYSTEM OF CARRYING MAIN WALLS AND WATER- 
JACKET STEEL GIRDERS FOR CARRYING FIRE-BRICK 
LINING. (PATENTED 1893.) 


12 









































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Tonnage Capacity 

Silver-leacl furnaces smaller than about 30 square feet hearth 
area are not recommended for other than oxidized and carbonate ores, 
and for all ores, that size or larger is more efficient, 42 inches by 120 
inches now being about the smallest size that is popular among smelt¬ 
ing people, though the size 42x84 inches does good work. We are 
often called upon for estimates on small furnaces of 5 to 15 tons daily 
capacity, but to all such inquiries we are obliged to answer that for 
smelting oxidized iron and carbonate ores, small silver-lead furnaces 
of say 15 or 20 tons daily capacity may be used, though never to such 
advantage, either metallurgically or commercially, as the large fur¬ 
naces, and that we do not, therefore, recommend these small equip¬ 
ments. There are, however, some conditions and some isolated local¬ 
ities where small furnaces as above are justified and may be operated 
to advantage, but in cases where hearth area is to be less than 12 
square feet the round furnace applies in preference to the rectangular. 
We build both copper and silver-lead round furnaces of diameter 
of 48, 42, 36 inches. It is not possible to rate tonnage capacity bv 
size of furnace unless it is known exactly what kind of ore is to be 
smelted. Thus, if a large proportion of iron ore and of limestone 
must be charged into the furnace as barren fluxes with the ore, then 
smelting of ore in the furnace and hence capacity of furnace for smelt¬ 
ing ore is reduced by just the proportion of these fluxes to the ore 
smelted, for it takes as much time and about as much fuel to smelt 
these fluxes as it does to smelt their weight in paying ore. Some ores 
smelt without the addition of fluxes, others with but a small propor¬ 
tion, while still in other ores the proportion of fluxing material necessary 
to be added is very great, amounting in some instances to a quarter, 
a third, and at times even a half, of the total furnace charge. It is 
also true that some ores smelt much more readily than others in fur¬ 
naces of given size. Some ores require roasting—others do not. An 
equipment for roasting given ores often costs as much or more than 
an equipment for smelting them. It is for these reasons a manifest 
fallacy to rate cost or tonnage capacity by size of furnace without 
knowing absolutely all conditions of ores, fluxes and fuel, and there- 
fore when called upon to furnish estimates on smelting plants of some 
named capacity, we must have full particulars by quantitative analysis 
as to the characteristics and constituents of ores, fuel, fluxes, etc., and 


13 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


when furnished with such necessary data we are always ready to make 
estimates on cost of plant suited to the conditions with guaranteed 
capacity. We desire to especially emphasize this explanation because 
letters and postal cards come almost every day asking for catalogues 
and price lists of pyritic furnaces or of silver-lead furnaces or cop¬ 
per furnaces, or. of furnaces having some named capacity, as a io-ton 
furnace, or a 20-ton or 30-ton furnace, giving no information what¬ 
ever as to the characteristics and composition of ores and local condi¬ 
tions, as though smelting equipments were articles of commerce 
adapted to the universal smelting of all ores, and that they could be 
catalogued as of named capacities and price lists made for them. This 
can never be honestly done. 

Stop Valves in Blast Pipes 

It is the universal practice to blow downward from the bustle pipe 
into the tuyeres and when the blower stops there is the ever-present 
danger of light hot gas (CO) backing up from the furnace and filling 
tuyere pipes and bustle pipes, and then when the blower starts again, 
causing an explosion. 

Valves have been put into the pipes or on the backs of jackets to 
close when the blast stops, but such valves are never tight enough to 
keep the hot gases back and are hence always unsafe. The only safe 
way is to provide clack valves which open automatically of their own 
weight when blast pressure is shut oft", allowing the inflammable gases 
to escape freely to the atmosphere. On some of the more recent fur¬ 
naces, especially where we provide the bustle pipes with automatic 
safety valves and have found them to work perfectly, they afford ab¬ 
solute immunity from gas explosions. 

Some Considerations Favorable 
to Hot-Blast Smelting 

In blast furnace smelting of gold, silver, lead and copper ores, 
conditions at the incandescent zone above the tuyeres, for oxidation 
and reduction are controlled by volume, temperature and pressure of 
blast with reference to cross section of the furnace at the tuyeres, 
character of the material being operated upon, and end results to be 
accomplished. In the use of hot air, provision must be made in tuyere 


14 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


area to accommodate and allow the passage of its vastly expanded vol¬ 
ume. If the air pipes and tuyeres are not proportioned to it, then 
necessarily at a given pressure of blast there may occur a localization 
of combustion simply by reason of the limited amount of oxygen sup¬ 
plied through them, which at once combines with the first carbon or 
other fuel as sulphur, with which it comes in contact, leaving less or 
none for other fuel in the same zone and above. 

Heating air blast by reason of its vastly increased volume tends 
to facility of distribution and not to localization of combustion. Pure 
oxygen blown in at the tuyeres would produce most violent local com¬ 
bustion and intensest heat. Nature attenuates oxygen by the admix¬ 
ture of a trifle more than four times its volume of nitrogen and the 
product becomes air and is susceptible, physically, by well-known 
means, of a much wider distribution and contact with the material and 
a corresponding distribution of resulting combustion in the furnace. 
Increasing heat invests it with the property of accelerating energy and 
intensity which would tend, if blown in hot, to violence of reaction with 
carbon, sulphur, iron, etc., concentration or localization of combus¬ 
tion and resultant excessively high temperature, were it not for the 
counteracting factor that nature again provides in the expansibility 
of gases under heat which has the same material effect of an atten¬ 
uating or thinning down of the air by increasing its volume by ex¬ 
pansion. The components remaining unchanged, the increased energy 
of its oxygen by reason of heat is counteracted or compensated for by 
reason of its attenuated condition in expanded volume, and 
facility of distribution prevents undue local action. The reactions pe¬ 
culiar to the zone of fusion, as also to the zone of reduction, or that of 
active oxidation, as the case may be, do not, however, occur until the 
air blown, whether hot or cold, has reached the temperature of that 
zone and the oxygen has hence acquired its extreme energy. Therefore 
the effect of heating the blast, on the action of the furnace is to make 
uniform action possible where it enters the furnace, by eliminating 
much of the cold otherwise carried in by the air blast and circulated 
or distributed irregularly and without control. A given amount of air 
expanded by heat to three times or four times its original volume is 
distributed throughout the tuyere zone, and above, through the pres¬ 
sure imparted to it by the blowing engine, with facility and certainty 
proportional to its expanded volume. When the air is heated to 553 
degree F. from 62 degrees normal atmosphere, its volume has been 
doubled and the facility for its thorough distribution and exposure 
throughout the tuyere zone is doubled, and so on proportionately to 


15 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

1045 degrees it is trebled and to 1535 degrees where it has four times 
its original volume. In the exact proportion that a given quantity of 
air is increased in volume by heat, the practicability of its thorough 
distribution and contact with every atom of exposed material, and 
hence of uniformity in degree of combustion at the zone of fusion and 
in the desired conditions throughout the other auxiliary zones respect¬ 
ively, is realized. 

Hot wind does not necessarily tend to concentration of temper¬ 
ature and rapid smelting, though it makes either the one or the other, 
or both, possible, when pressure, temperature and volume are under 
control to adapt all to size and shape of furnace and character of ore 
being smelted. Intense heat is a necessary condition of the smelting 
zone of a furnace. Cold, purely as cold in the air blast introduced for 
the purpose of producing any useful modifying effect on a zone of the 
furnace where incandescence is a normal and necessary condition, is 
an absurdity. The effect of such cold can only have a retarding and 
disturbing influence in that zone. 

A part of the air sent to a blast furnace is for the purpose of 
generating heat by the burning of fuel to raise the temperature of ma¬ 
terial within the furnace to a point at which it is possible for the de¬ 
sired chemical reactions to take place rapidly, and further to melt such 
material when it reaches the tuyere zone, while another part is required 
for the burning of fuel necessary for those reactions, or else for its 
oxidizing effect higher up in the furnace on ores carrying sulphur, 
iron, etc. There are large proportional areas, especially in the neigh¬ 
borhood of the tuyeres, in every cold blast furnace, in which the de¬ 
sired reactions cannot take place because the blast of cold air keeps 
these areas too cool to admit of them. Witness the cold, dark spots 
or patches, and often the whole mass of material, in the neighborhood 
of the tuyeres in every cold blast furnace. Proportionally as the air 
is sent hot into the furnace these cool areas are reduced in size and in 
far greater proportion is the capacity and efficiency of the furnace in¬ 
creased. Zinc crusts and other accretions of kindred nature obtrude 
less difficulties to combat when not complicated by the presence of cold 
inactive spots produced by the cold of the air blast. A pound of car¬ 
bon requires 11.6 pounds of air for its consumption, and conversely 
for each pound of carbon that is saved from burning in the furnace 
by burning it in contact with the blast before it reaches the furnace, 
the cooling influence of 11.6 pounds of cold air is kept out of the zone 
of intensest heat, as much cold in the air blast to be overcome by heat 
to be developed from each pound of carbon as would be required to 


16 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

melt 32 pounds of pig iron from atmospheric temperature, and it is 
by far better to relieve the furnace of at least a part of the duty of 
heating in its most vital part such enormous quantities of cold air to 
burn fuel for the production of heat that may more efficiently and 
cheaply be produced outside and carried in with the air blast. 

Hot air is a most potent factor in facility of control in furnace 
working. Eliminating the element of cold from the air blast removes 
the one unmanageable factor in blast furnace smelting; it is unman¬ 
ageable because the course or direction of the air when it enters the 
furnace is largely determined bv the dark areas and patches of cold 
material, rendered so dark and cold by the cold of the air blast and 
against which it impinges. 

If the current of cold air could be kept constantly impinging on 
the glowing coke, then to overcome its cooling influence would be 
only a question of fuel added; but it is not so, because such incandes¬ 
cent fuel as a sharp blast of cold air is caused to impinge against is at 
once cooled, blown out as it were, and it is only after the blast of cold 
air has passed through the heated mass of material and becomes 
heated thereby that it may impinge directly upon incandescent fuel 
without deadening, or cooling it. This is plainly seen in the opera¬ 
tion of any cold blast furnace, for on looking into the tuyeres they are 
generally seen to be black and to look cold throughout, except that far 
in an occasional bright spot may be seen, but such bright spots are al¬ 
ways protected from the direction of the cold blast by the cooled or 
partially cooled material at the tuyeres against which the air impinges 
on its entrance to the furnace and thence finds its way around through 
the heated mass of furnace material and becomes itself heated and thus 
prepared to perform its functions in the necessary reactions. 

And so it turns out that in the absence of a heating stove outside 
the blast furnace in which the air blast may be heated, the furnace 
itself at its most vital and most sensitive part, the tuyere zone, must 
be utilized as a stove for that purpose primarily and at the expense of 
its efficiency for its other duties and functions. 

In cold blast furnaces there is a constant tendency to burn too 
high up above the tuyere zone, which is caused by the cold air cooling 
relatively, all material at the tuyeres, while itself is being heated up 
to the temperature at which it is possible for the air to become a factor 
in the reactions to which it is necessary. 

If, in any particular zone of the furnace a given condition of 
temperature, oxidation of fuel, and incandescence is necessary, then 
that condition is desirable in the whole of that zone, and the cooling 


17 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


in spots and patches by forcing a blast of cold air into it, curtails the 
area and the efficiency of that zone, not only by the amount in rela¬ 
tive proportion of those abnormally cooled spots or patches to the 
whole zone under consideration, but by far more than this, for they lie 
there in the way of the blast, obstructing and preventing it from circu¬ 
lating freely throughout the incandescent zone which it necessarily 
should do, for the requisite supply of oxygen to each and every indi¬ 
vidual inch in that section, and not only is the room that such cooled 
areas occupy, lost absolutely and to be deducted from value of cross 
section, but their adverse effect 011 its operation by deflecting the blast 
upward or downward anywhere away from where it is needed to where 
it is not needed, is still more serious, for no possible good but much 
harm must come as a result of blast blown against cooled masses of 
furnace material and deflected thence upward or downward or athwart 
into material from which heat is obstructed by the cool areas. It is 
only the air that gets around these cool spots in some way and into 
the burning fuel and is then heated, that does effective duty. In like 
manner and for like reasons combustion may be checked and the 
smelting operation ended by a very violent blast of cold air in a fur¬ 
nace burning carbonaceous fuel, and it is for this reason that very large 
furnaces cannot be operated with cold blast. Whenever the furnace 
is so large that blast pressure must be increased to several pounds in 
order to permeate to the center of the whole mass of furnace material 
at the tuyere zone to maintain combustion there, then the excess of 
coal extinguishes the fire, blows it out, as it were, in continually widen¬ 
ing areas in the neighborhood of the tuyeres where it is introduced, 
and for distances inward greater and greater as blast pressure is in¬ 
creased, but in patches or spots only, of greater or less area until the 
center is reached and cooled so much as to stop the smelting operation 
all along the center line ; the half melted mass of unsmelted material 
cools more and more, growing larger and larger until it is finally con¬ 
nected here and there with the cold patches between the center and the 
sides, and now excessive irregularities are culminating in a frozen up 
furnace, often solid at the center, while yet partially open along the 
sides. 

Air is delivered into a blast furnace at its hottest part—the zone 
of fusion—the tuyere zone. It follows that to perform its functions 
its temperature must first become the same as the temperature of that 
zone. It is not to be admitted that any other than that temperature 
adapts it for its offices there, else why blown onto that hottest zone, or 
else why has that zone such temperature? It is not for a moment to 


.18 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


be supposed that some other, some lower temperature suits the air to 
its duties as a factor in furnace operation; that it may be better blown 
in cold and allowed to warm up to its work and that it could perform 
its office efficiently and reliably when submitted to such fortuitous con¬ 
ditions in its warming up, one part of the air blast impinging on or 
blowing into the fierce heat of glowing fuel where the excess not re¬ 
quired to support combustion at that point is heated instantly to the 
highest burning temperature, possibly 4,000 degrees of more, oxidiz¬ 
ing rapidly any reduced lead with which it may come in contact; an¬ 
other part landing against some cold dark spot and deflected thence 
against some other cold dark area, thence dodging around until it 
does get into the heat somewhere, often far above the proper smelting 
zone, and having finally acquired the heat necessary, it performs its 
offices in conjunction with fuel at that point, producing heat and set¬ 
ting up a temporary smelting area above the normal one. Thus is 
the proper smelting zone robbed of a part of the air necessary to its 
appropriate reactions and further chilling ensues, while the smelting 
zone is extended upward and rendered inefficient throughout its whole 
extent. The air must reach the temperature at which the desired reac¬ 
tions take place before it can become a factor in these reactions, and 
hence the proper temperature of all the air in any zone of the furnace 
is that at which the reactions peculiar to that zone take place, and 
because air blown into the zone of incandescence can only perform 
its appropriate functions there when at the temperature of that zone, 
the nearer to that temperature it is when it reaches there the less dis¬ 
turbance and irregularity it will create in that vital section. 

Hot blast contributes to support the combustion of carbonaceous 
and other fuel, as sulphur, etc., with a minimum of oxygen supplied, 
i, e. } the hot blast and fuel are drawn upon most for the necessary 
smelting reactions, and least possible for heating per se. Heating the 
blast promotes regularity of heat and of chemical reaction by promot¬ 
ing uniformity of conditions throughout each individual section of the 
furnace, especially in the zones of incandescence and fusion where the 
most active changes are taking place, reduction or oxidation predom¬ 
inating, as the case may be, both in that zone and above. Reducing 
the amount of air necessary to be forced into the furnace to burn fuel 
for the promotion of heat, in that proportion is reduced the probability 
of excessive lead oxidation in silver-lead smelting, and it does not in 
the least tend to increase oxidation of lead by reason of the heat it 
carries with it, so long as initial blast temperature is below the neces¬ 
sary temperature of the furnace at that zone where it enters. On the 


19 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

contrary, by reason of the uniform conditions made possible and pro¬ 
moted by the heated air blast in the various zones of the furnace re¬ 
spectively, especially that at the tuyeres and that one of incandes¬ 
cence next above the tuyere zone, the probability of excessive oxida¬ 
tion of lead is much further reduced. Because the blast is heated it 
does not follow that the furnace need be, or would be run hotter than 
is common or desirable. Hot blast does not necessarily involve in¬ 
creased temperature in any one zone of the furnace. Incandescence at 
the tuyere zone where the air blast enters, is a necessary condition of 
every blast furnace, but the temperature of the heated blast being 
always below that of incandescence, the heat of that zone and of the 
whole furnace is within easy and accurate control. In copper mat¬ 
ting a higher tenor in matte is realized where heated air blast is used. 

In matte smelting of sulphide ores, and where carbonaceous fuel 
is used, the tendency is to reduce iron oxide and sulphurous acid gas 
already produced, by excess of carbon monoxide and to produce poor 
matte, because carbon monoxide in the first instance robs the FeO of 
its oxygen to form carbon dioxide, thus robbing the slag of the iron 
needed there, and sending it to the crucible to burden the matte, and in 
the second instance the sulphurous acid gas, which would otherwise es¬ 
cape by the chimney is robbed of a part of its oxygen, thus producing 
sulphur and sending that also to the matte. The less carbonaceous 
fuel necessary to be burned in the furnace, and the less carbon mon¬ 
oxide generated there, other conditions being right, the less imminent 
becomes these undesirable reactions, and hence the more of the neces¬ 
sary heat that is generated outside of the furnace and sent in with 
the air blast, and so the less carbonaceous fuel necessary, the more fa¬ 
vorable are the conditions in this view of the case to a higher percentage 
of concentration of valuable products in the matte, a more fluid and 
cleaner slag is produced and the suggestion points significantly to py- 
ritic smelting. 

T o the application of hot blast is due the great economy and 
efficiency realized in modern iron smelting practice, for it is the appli¬ 
cation of heated air blast that has made the great iron furnaces of to¬ 
day possible. Blown with cold blast not one of them could run a week. 
Heated blast, making uniform conditions of combustion and of conse¬ 
quent reactions possible in each individual cross section of the furnace, 
has made high blast pressure possible, without which furnaces of large 
cross section area could not be blown. There is no condition of blast 
temperature applying in iron smelting that does not apply with equal 
force and effect in lead smelting for gold and silver, in copper matting- 

20 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co.' —1905 

and pyritic smelting. Localization or distribution of heat, according 
to conditions demanded by the reactions sought to be realized, are 
accomplished by formulating suitable relative proportions of air tem¬ 
perature, pressure and volume, cross section of the furnace at the tuy¬ 
eres and general dimensions, with a certainty and regularity not pos¬ 
sible in cold blast smelting. 

The air blast in iron smelting is heated by the inflammable gases, 
chiefly the carbon monoxide which is evolved. Little or no such gases 
escape from furnaces smelting the ores of copper, lead, silver and gold, 
and hence to heat the air blast for these, other means must be re¬ 
sorted to. 

The importance of this feature is manifest when it is considered 
that 11.6 pounds of air is consumed in burning one pound of carbon, 
as coal or coke. More than a ton and a half of air must be heated to 
the smelting temperature, either in the blast furnace or both in the 
stove and in the blast furnace for each ton of ore and fluxes smelted. 

As indicated by the above explanation, the greater proportion by 
far of the heat involved in the smelting of ores is expended in heating 
the air necessary to the operation, either within the blast furnace, as 
when cold blast is used, or partly by the stove and partly within the 
smelting furnace, as when hot blast is applied. 

Proportionate Quantity of Hot 
Air as Compared with Cold 
Air Involved in Smelting 

Assuming, as was done for illustration elsewhere in this book, 
a furnace 42-inch by 168-inch cross section at the tuyeres, into which 
10,000 cubic feet of cold air is blown per minute, and three hundred 
tons per 24-hour day of sulphide and other ores, fluxes and fuel are 
charged in, the percentage of good coke being 11 per cent, of the 
charge. 

The 10,000 cubic feet of air blown in each minute weighs 761 
pounds at sea level, with normal temperature 62 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Three hundred tons charge per day of 24 hours is 417 pounds per min¬ 
ute, the coke, being 11 per cent, of this, is 45.87 pounds, say 46 pounds 
per minute. To burn pure carbon two and two-thirds its weight in 


21 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

oxygen is combined. Assume 10 per cent, off, which must be accounted 
for as silica in the charge of coke, for ash and other waste, and there is 
left 41.4 pounds of carbon, which, multiplied by two and two-thirds, 
gives 110.4 pounds of oxygen, or 480 pounds of air, the extreme mini¬ 
mum possible. This, from 761 pounds of air blown in, leaves 281 
pounds of air per minute absorbed in burning sulphur and iron, in 
other reactions, and some passing through the furnace unchanged. 
An ore charge that has enough sulphur in it to run cold blast on 11 per 
cent, fuel charge will always run on 3 per cent, and less, with 800 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit hot blast. 

By calculation as before, but now applied to hot blast, 3 per cent, 
of the charge being fuel would absorb 131 pounds of air, which, added 
to 281 pounds blown in the cold blast and not accounted for as com¬ 
bined with carbon, assumed again as excess in the case of hot blast, 
makes a total of air required to drive the hot-blast furnace 412 pounds, 
or 5,400 cubic feet of air required in the hot-blast furnace for a given 
duty, as against 10,000 cubic feet in the cold-blast furnace. It is only 
this smaller quantity, to-wit, 5,400 cubic feet of air, that must be heated 
in the stove for such given duty, and that, with a cheaper fuel, as 
against 10,000 cubic feet to be heated at the tuyere zone of the 
cold-blast furnace with expensive coke. The stove thus proves an 
economy in heating the necessary air alone, and the fact is brought out 
that, by heating the air, the smelting capacity of any given size of fur¬ 
nace is very greatly increased—nearly doubled, in fact—under aver¬ 
age conditions and proportions of material in the ore charge. The 
furnace that used 10,000 cubic feet of cold air per minute, blown in at 
the tuyeres, has capacity for a like 10,000 cubic feet of cold air heated 
up to, say 900 degrees in a stove, while, as shown above, the heated air 
in the latter case is equal to serve in smelting capacity to nearly double 
that of the like amount of cold air blown directly into the furnace. 

Air blown into a furnace must be raised to the combustion or 
smelting temperature before it can there perform its required functions. 
Its cooling effect at the tuyere zone is most prolific of furnace irreg¬ 
ularities. 

The cold or deficiency temperature carried into the tuyere zone 
of a cold-blast furnace by the air necessary to smelt a ton of ore, is 
more than one and a half times the cold or deficiency temperature inci¬ 
dent to the ton of ore charged in, and it takes more than once and a 
half the number of heat units to heat this air to the smelting temper¬ 
ature that it does to heat the ton of ore to the smelting temperature. 
So great a proportion of cold introduced at the tuyeres is certainly an 


99 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

active disturbing- factor, and must be, as said above, prolific of furnace 
irregularities. 

In a general way, with the average conditions as they obtain 
throughout the country, with lower-priced fuel adapted for heating- 
air in the U pipe stove, as compared with the high-priced coke that 
must be used in the blast furnace, air may be heated as cheaply, pound 
for pound, to a temperature of 800 or 900 degrees Fahrenheit in a 
well-designed stove as in the smelting zone of the blast furnace. 

While it is true that a less ultimate number of heat units will heat 
a cubic foot of air to a given temperature where the air is exposed to 
the glowing fuel, as in the tuyere zone of a blast furnace, than it will 
do through the medium of heated pipes, as in a U pipe stove, it is also 
true that any kind of commercial fuel, as coal, wood, oil or gas, is suit¬ 
able for heating the U pipes of a stove, while in the blast furnace only 
the most expensive fuel, as coke or charcoal, can be used, and the heat¬ 
ing of the air is there done with this expensive fuel. 

In hot-blast smelting of sulphide ores but one-half, or sometimes 
three-fifths, as much air is necessary as in cold-blast smelting of the 
same ores, and, therefore, but a proportional cost is involved in heating 
the air used; that is, but one-half or three-fifths as much in value of 
fuel is expended in bringing the air necessary to drive a hot-blast fur¬ 
nace up to the ultimate smelting temperature, as is required for a cold- 
blast furnace. 

The difference in the amount of air required is owing to the much 
smaller quantity of carbonaceous fuel necessary to be burned in the hot- 
blast furnace. Every pound of carbon saved saves also 140 cubic feet 
of air, for it takes 140 cubic feet of air to burn a pound of carbon. It 
is true that oxygen is necessary to the burning of sulphur for the 
production of heat, but it is also true that a cold-blast furnace has 
to burn the sulphur, and uses as much air in burning that sulphur, as 
it is burned there, as a hot blast uses in bringing the sulphur to com¬ 
plete combustion, and utilizes it as an available fuel in the smelting op¬ 
eration. The sulphur in the charge has to be gotten rid of—burned 
up—except that retained as a constituent of the matte. It will not burn 
when exposed to a blast of cold air; therefore, in a cold-blast furnace, 
a lot of coke has to be charged in and the air heated thus to burn the 
sulphur, for the sulphur must be burned to dispose of it, so excess of 
air, over that needed for burning the coke, must be blown in and heated 
by the coke to burn the sulphur. Thus it is evident that it takes as 
much heated air to destroy and so get rid of the sulphur in a cold-blast 


23 



i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

furnace as it does to utilize it as an available fuel when smelting with 
hot air blast. 

In the cold-blast furnace the cold air is blown in at the tuyere 
zone, and a part of it is there absorbed in keeping up the coke fire, 
while the excess over that so used is heated at that point, and passes 
thus hot into the zones of the furnace above, and there contributes the 
necessary oxygen to burn the sulphur. For this reason most of the 
sulphur is burned high up in the cold-blast furnace instead of being 
burned at the smelting zone, where its calorific effect can be of any value 
in the smelting operation. Sulphur will not burn in a blast of cold air 
without the addition of carbon. Sulphur does burn without the addi¬ 
tion of carbon in a heated air blast. 

When sulphur is burned in the higher zones of the furnace, its 
tendency is to carry the smelting zone bodily high up, and when this 
occurs the furnace soon freezes up. Burning much sulphur above, as 
must always be done in a cold-blast furnace, contributes to, and usually 
produces, hot top; and hence cold-blast furnaces running on a high 
sulphur charge nearly, or quite, always run with hot top, and the heat 
wasted in a hot top is usually enough to run the whole furnace if ap¬ 
plied in the right place—the tuyere zone. With the air blast heated to 
800 or 900 degrees Fahrenheit, all sulphur is burned at and near the 
tuyeres, and thus the smelting is done by the aid, chiefly, of burning 
sulphur, instead of coke, as is the case in the cold-blast furnace. 

U pipes of cast iron will stand month after month 
at a lozv red heat without distortion or other dam- 
age, if properly designed and made of suitable ma¬ 
terial. 

Hot-Blast U Pipe Stove 

Our U pipe stove is usually made up of four series of U pipes 
in each section, each series consisting of 6 or 7 or 8 U pipes, thus 
making 24 or 28 or 32 U pipes in each section. These U pipes 
are made in diameters of 6, 8 or 10 inches inside, and the length 
of each leg is 9 foot to 18 feet, or, the two legs of each pipe aggregate 
18 feet to 36 feet, the proportions thus varying to suit conditions to be 
fulfilled. All dimensions given above are of such parts of the U pipes 
as are exposed to the heat of the heating chambers, and therefore rep¬ 
resent heating surface. Thickness of metal varies from three-quarters 
to one inch, depending on the various sizes, as above. 


24 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


1905 


Any number of sections, consisting as above of four series to 
the section and 6, 7 or 8 pipes in each series, are attached or coupled 
together, through flanges on the mains, to make a stove of any size 
required. The elbows and flanges, which serve to couple the U pipes 
together, as also the rectangular main blast pipes of the stove, which 
serve respectively to conduct the cold air into the various series of U 
pipes and the hot air out of them, and to which the several series are 
connected by flanges, are rectangular, of suitable size, three-quarters 
of an inch thick, rest on the end walls of the heating chamber, and are 
all above it. These mains are usually bricked in, or else covered with 
asbestos cement to prevent loss of heat by radiation. There are flanges 
below the elbows on the U pipes, as high up as practicable and com¬ 
pletely encircling them, and on these flanges are placed fire tiles of 
suitable form, which constitute the roof or top of the heating chamber, 
down into which project the main portion of the U pipe for heating. 
The roof of the heating chamber, including the top elbows of the U 
pipes, are usually covered with ashes a foot or a foot and a half deep, 
to prevent heat radiation from the roof and from the top elbows. 

This system of covering and insulating the top, and thus con¬ 
serving heat that would otherwise be radiated into the atmosphere 
and lost, is the best, simplest and cheapest possible, admitting of ready 
access to the flanged elbows, where the U pipes are bolted together. 

All joints are machined true, and provided with asbestos gaskets, 
and are thus capable of being always screwed up air tight, and must 
always be so, for a leaky stove entails great loss. Every joint and 
every bolt in our stoves is readily accessible from the outside of the 
stove, and no joint or bolt is exposed to the fire or to the heat of the 
heating chamber. 

U pipes can be detached, taken out when necessary and replaced 
with new, without drawing the fires or cooling the stove, other than to 
close all draft doors tight and shut off the blast. In case of necessary 
repairs, the cold air blast is turned off the stove and directly into the 
blast furnace. A burned-out U pipe can be taken out, a new pipe put 
in, and the air blast turned through the stove again, in an hour, without 
cooling down the stove. 

The U pipes as made by us never break from expansion and con¬ 
traction. They are so made that these strains are taken up without 
the slightest damage. Any U pipe may be burned or melted into 
holes if not properly protected from the direct action of the currents 
of heat from the reverberatory roofs of the fire boxes. Such currents 
must pass into the heating chamber, where the U pipes hang, but must 


25 



HOT-BLAST U PIPE STOVE, 



























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































PLAN OF HOT-BLAST U PIPE STOVE SYSTEM. 
















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


I 9°5 


not impinge directly upon them. If properly protected, the U pipes 
may hang in the heating chamber for months, and even years, at about 
a dull red heat, without damage. 

Properly designed and built, and properly cared for, the pipe 
stove is not more subject to stoppage or accident than is the blast fur¬ 
nace or the roasting furnace, or other necessary factors of the smelt¬ 
ing plant. 

Practically, air does not heat at all by radiation, but only by con¬ 
tact with heated surfaces, and, for this reason, to heat air economically, 
ample heating surfaces must be provided. To increase the heating 
surfaces of our pipes, we cast them with longitudinal ribs on the 
inside, as shown in detail in the drawings. 

Iron is a very active conductor of heat, and projecting inward from 
the body of the pipes, as they do, these ribs become heated, and the air 
coming in contact with them, as well as with the balance of the inside 
surface of the U pipes, the area of the heating surface and hence the 
efficiency of the stove, is very greatly increased—doubled, in fact. 

U pipes of cast iron zvill stand far more licat without 
distortion or other damage than pipes made of steel 

or wrought iron. 

Data For Required Heating Sur¬ 
face and Velocity of Air Blast 
In U Pipe Stoves 

The heating surface necessary for heating an air blast to 600 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit may be taken as four-tenths, and to 800 degrees five- 
tenths of a square foot, for each cubic foot of air to be heated per 
minute. The extreme ultimate velocity of heated air on leaving the 
stove and in the pipes to the furnace should not exceed 5,000 feet per 
minute. 

Air expands .002036 of its volume for each Fahrenheit degree 
added; therefore, when heated to 600 degrees Fahrenheit from 60 de¬ 
grees normal atmosphere, its volume has become 2.1 times its original 
volume, and hence all pipes and tuyeres must have more than double 
the area required for cold air of given amount in weight. 


29 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Relative Size of Tuyeres 

The expansion of air by heat is .002036 of its volume for each 
Fahrenheit degree, or, conversely, its pressure is increased in that ratio, 
its volume remaining constant. Therefore, 100 cubic feet of air at 62 
degrees Fahrenheit, when raised to 900 degrees Fahrenheit, expands to 
270 cubic feet under the same pressure. 

To admit a given amount of air to a furnace, under a given pres¬ 
sure, the cross section area of the tuyeres must be 2.7 times as great 
when the air is blown in at 900 degrees Fahrenheit as when it is blown 
in at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Thus a tuyere three inches in diameter will admit as many pounds 
of air at 62 degrees Fahrenheit, under a given pressure, as one 4.9 
inches diameter at 900 degrees, omitting difference in friction. A 
furnace blown through tuyeres of a given size, with air at 900 degrees 
Fahrenheit, gets but 37 per cent, as much in weight of air as when 
blown through the same tuyeres at 62 degrees Fahrenheit, the pressure 
in each case being the same. 

Violent currents of flame and incandescent products 
of combustion from the reverberatory roofs of the 
fire boxes must be directed between the rows of 
U pipes, and never allowed to impinge upon and 

melt them. 


An Oil Stove Hot-Blast System 
for Copper-Matting Furnaces 

The cuts on the adjacent pages illustrate a system of heating air 
for copper matting and pyritic furnaces, and consists essentially of a 
suitable chamber, through which the air passes on its way from the blow¬ 
er to the furnace, and within this chamber, in the atmosphere of the air 
blast, an open fire of gas or oil is kept burning, the heat from which is 
absorbed by the passing air blast and carried thence into the furnace. 
By this method the ultimate calorific value of the fuel oil or gas burned 
m the sto\ e is utilized m heating the air blast. With these conditions 
some \ci\ important considerations are involved. The incandescent 


30 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

gaseous products of combustion in the stove mix and go forward with 
the heated air into the smelting furnace, thus reducing the proportion¬ 
ate amount of oxygen blown in by the amount consumed in the stove. 
Carbon dioxide gas now becomes a constituent of the air blast in pro¬ 
portion as oxygen has been consumed in heating it, but, as the ultimate 
value of oxygen consumed has been utilized in heating the air and that 
heat has gone forward into the furnace, it follows that just so much less 
oxygen is required in the furnace for the purpose of oxidizing fuel for 
heat production there, because the aggregate amount of fuel necessarv 
to be burned in the furnace for purposes of heat production is reduced 
proportionately as heat is brought in with the air blast, and no loss is 
sustained in the attenuation of the air by the amount of carbon dioxide, 
which mixes and goes forward with it. 

Some persons have said and have written, without due considera¬ 
tion of the case, that the fire burning in the stove, which is, in effect, 
simply an enlargement of the main blast pipe, would so contaminate or 
vitiate the air as to make the system impracticable. Such assumption 
is wholly untenable. 

Suppose that the main blast pipe were made large all the way from 
the blower to the furnace, and that there were any number of movable 
gas jets placed inside this pipe, and that these jets were set burning, 
and were caused to move along in the blast pipe until they reached the 
tuyeres still burning, and so burned inside the furnace. Certainly these 
gas jets burning inside the furnace are not contaminating the air inside 
to the disadvantage of its efficient working, any more than the coke in¬ 
side is doing. It is all one in effect. The gas is simply using air and 
generating heat there, just as the coke is generating heat there and us¬ 
ing air. By whatever proportional amount of heat the gas generates 
in the furnace, by just that proportional amount may the coke necessary 
for generating heat in the furnace be reduced, and by just the propor¬ 
tion of air consumed in supplying the gas jets in the stove, the same 
proportional amount less is required in the furnace to burn coke, because 
there is that proportion less of coke necessary to be burned in the fur¬ 
nace for the production of heat. 

Who is to say at what point in the pipe these gas jets are con¬ 
taminating the air to the disadvantage of the furnace working, and at 
what point they cease to do so in their passage along through the pipe, 
and thence through the tuyeres into the furnace? 

As a matter of fact, as has been stated, and repeatedly reiterated, 
whatever amount of heat is generated in this stove, and so carried into 
the furnace, reduces the amount of heat to be generated in the furnace 


31 



HOT-BLAST STOVE FOR BURNING OIL FUEL. 
















SHOWING SECTIONS OF HOT-BLAST STOVE FOR BURNING OIL FUEL. 























































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

by just that amount, reducing - the fuel to be burned there in just that 
proportion, and hence reducing the oxygen necessary there by the same 
proportion. 

Assuming now that the blower is sending air enough to operate 
the furnace cold blast, light the stove and consume some of the oxygen, 
and the carbon dioxide formed passes in with the heated air, but, as 
the air is heated in the stove and thence blown in, less fuel is required 
inside the furnace to heat the air, and hence proportionally less oxygen. 

Carbon dioxide does not contaminate or vitiate air at all, any more 
than nitrogen vitiates it. Carbon dioxide does not combine with the 
oxygen of the air any more than nitrogen combines with it. If in a 
volume of air there is one part of oxygen and four parts of nitrogen, 
then one-fifth of the whole is oxygen. If in a volume of air one part is 
oxygen, four parts nitrogen, and one part carbon dioxide, then simply 
one-sixth of the volume is oxygen. The oxygen has not been vitiated 
or contaminated in any sense. Who ever heard of oxygen being vi¬ 
tiated or contaminated by nitrogen? No more can oxygen be contam¬ 
inated by carbon dioxide. Both nitrogen and carbon dioxide are in¬ 
ert. As some of the oxygen has been used in burning fuel in the stove, 
heating the air, less fuel has to be burned in the furnace by just the 
calorific value of that burned in the stove, and hence the oxygen com¬ 
bined in the stove is not needed in the furnace. 

Again: Carbon dioxide thus blown into the furnace can produce 
no cooling effect, except in the breaking up of its composition, in whole 
or in part, into its constituents, in which case, when reuniting, the equiv¬ 
alent of heat is recovered. Thus carbon dioxide blown into incandescent 
sulphur may give up an atom of O to the sulphur, leaving CO to com¬ 
bine with the first free air with which it comes in contact, Ovine 0 ff 
heat again, while sulphur has been burned, giving off heat also, the two 
operations aggregating just the equivalent of heat recovered that was 
lost in partially breaking up CO2 into its constituents, and at the same 
time a distinct gain is realized in destruction of sulphur that would 
otherwise have gone into the matte if the furnace were beine blown 
with cold air. 

The hot-blast stove under consideration consists essentially of two 
chambers, viz.: a combustion chamber and a main blast chamber, 
divided by a wall of fire brick, with an opening of suitable 
size through this wall. One of these chambers is adapted for combus¬ 
tion of fuel-oil or gas, and is supplied with suitable burners. 

The blast from the blower to the furnace passes through the other 
or main blast chamber. Air for the combustion chamber is furnished 

34 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

by a blower working- under a pressure slightly greater than that of the 
main blower (which furnishes air to the furnace), in order to insure a 
constant current from the combustion chamber through the opening 
in the division wall into the blast chamber, through which the air blast 
from the blower to the furnace passes. Air for the combustion cham¬ 
ber is heated by passing through a series of suitable pipes in the main 
blast chamber. 

Owing to the excess of pressure in the combustion chamber, a 
constant current is maintained from the combustion chamber into the 
main blast chamber, thus mixing with and heating the air of the blast 
in the blast chamber on its way to the furnace. 

The heating* effect of one pound of average crude petroleum and 
the amount of air necessary to burn is shown by the following: 

One pound petroleum, consisting of— 

Per Cent. Pounds. B. T. U. 


Carbon . 85.0 combining with oxygen 2.267 at 62° F. produces 12325 

Hydrogen . 13.7 combining with oxygen 1.096 at 62° F„ produces 7261 

Ash. 1.3 

100 3.363 19586 


The amount of oxygen consumed as above, viz., 3.363 pounds, is 
that contained in 14.6217 pounds, or 192.13 cubic feet of air. 

To heat air from 62 degrees Fahrenheit to 900 degrees Fahrenheit 
we have available, from the combustion of one pound of crude petrol¬ 
eum, 19586 B. T. U. The temperature of the air must be raised 83S 
degrees. Therefore, 19586 divided by 838 equals 23.372, divided by 
.25 (the specific heat of air) we have 93.488 pounds, or 1228.43 cubic 
feet of air, heated from 62 degrees to 900 degrees Fahrenheit by the 
burning of one pound of crude petroleum. But we have only con¬ 
sumed the oxygen contained in 192.13 cubic feet of air; that is, we 
have only used, in burning one pound of crude petroleum, 15.6 per 
cent, of the total volume of air heated to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Thus we have left of the 1228.43 cubic feet of air 84.4 per cent., or 
1036.3 cubic feet of air, blown into the furnace, with its oxygen un¬ 
disturbed. 

By the combustion of one pound of crude petroleum we have pro¬ 
duced 3.117 pounds of carbon dioxide, or 26.8062 cubic feet. This is 
only 2.17 per cent, of the total volume of air heated to 900 degrees. 
We have also produced 1.2466 pounds of steam, or 33.935 cubic feet. 
This amounts to only 2.75 per cent, of the total volume of air heated 
to 900 degrees. So that, altogether, the combustion of one pound of 
average crude petroleum in the oil-burning hot-blast stove will raise 


35 





i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


the temperature of 1228.43 cubic feet of air from 62 degrees Fahrenheit 
to 900 degrees, and in so doing produce less than 3 per cent, of the 
volume of this air in carbon dioxide and steam. 

One pound crude petroleum for combustion, as shown above, re¬ 
quires 192.13 cubic feet of air, and in burning produces 3.117 pounds 
carbon dioxide, 1.246 pounds of steam, and in heat 19586 B. T. U. To 
produce the same number of heat units we require in the furnace 1.35 
pounds carbon, which for combustion requires 205.77 cubic feet air, 
and in burning produces 4.95 pounds carbon dioxide, so that to obtain 
the same quantity of heat at the tuyeres, inside the furnace, by the 
burning of carbon, as would be available by the burning of one pound 
of crude petroleum in the hot-blast stove, there is produced 58.8 per 
cent, more carbon dioxide. 

If the steam produced by the burning of one pound of petroleum 
is also taken into account, we still have 13.6 per cent, more carbon di¬ 
oxide formed inside the furnace when carbon is burned there than all 
the so-called “inert" gases produced by the burning of crude petroleum 
in the stove, both resulting in exactly the same quantity of heat. Thus 
is demonstrated the fact that there is more CO2 for a given equivalent 
of heat generated by burning coke at the tuyere zone than is carried in 
there as a product of combustion from the oil stove. 



Having made elaborate smelting tests of the stove above described, 
we are prepared to guarantee its efficiency as follows, to-wit: 

We will build a copper smelting plant at any railroad station in 
the Southwest, equipped with stoves as above described, the furnaces 
to be adapted with air pipes for smelting with either hot air or cold. 
We will start and operate this plant with hot blast on sulphide copper 
ores at more than 10 per cent, lower cost for fuel per ton of ore smelted 
than any other person shall run the same ore with equal efficiency in the 
same plant with cold blast. 

Or, we will, with the hot blast, make a 50 per cent, greater output, 
with equally clean slags and equally high-grade matte, than any other 
can do in the same plant with cold blast. The design of the blast 
furnace to be of recent standard, as shall be agreed upon. 

A price shall be fixed separately for the stove, and if we fail in 
either of above conditions as shall be agreed upon, then we to take the 
stove out at our own cost and deduct its price from the contract price 
for the whole, if desired so to do by the other party to the contract. 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


« 


Coming Improvements 

Hot air blast is to effect the next revolution in the smelting of the 
ores of gold, silver, lead and copper. Improvements come slow, come 
hard, and onlv come at all when forced in by necessity. So long as a 
management is getting on well in money-making, they are not easily 
induced to adopt improvements. It is only when the margin of profit 
narrows*down to low limits, or to nothing, that improvements in 
methods are seriously considered. It is when the cost of mining and 
transporting a sulphide ore to the smelter, and roasting, smelting and 
marketing the product costs as much as is obtained for it, that the 
superintendent ceases to look with complacency, and begins to look 
with concern upon the sulphur fumes rolling out of his stacks and off 
of his roast heaps, representing, as they do, great values lost in waste of 
available fuel not utilized. It is then that the manager seriously con¬ 
siders means of improvement. 

Every eight pounds of sulphur, as a constituent of iron pyrites in 
the charge, is worth in available calorific value for producing heat in 
the furnace and smelting that charge, as much as three pounds of the 
purest coke. It is as easily utilized as the coke, if only the conditions 
are right, and the conditions are quite in control of the intelligent 
metallurgist. It can not be burned and so utilized with a cold air blast. 
It can be burned and thus utilized to its full value if the air blast is 
sufficiently heated before being blown into the furnace. Heating the 
air before it is blown in, is no matter of extra cost, because whatever 
heat is carried in by the hot air blast represents its full equivalent of 
heat value in the furnace, and so much the less heat has to be generated 
there. 

A cheap fuel can be utilized to heat the air blast in the stove, 
while ordinarily the most expensive fuel—good coke—must be used 
inside the furnace. Usually the heat carried in from a good stove with 
the air blast has cost no more to produce in the stove, and thence carried 
in with the air, than it would have cost to produce it directly in the 
smelting furnace, while, at the same time, the sulphur fuel content of 
the ore is utilized when the hot blast is used. An economic saving of 
fuel is thus effected, which is mostly lost when cold blast is applied, 
at the expense of much coke in the latter case. 

A cold blast matting furnace, with a considerable sulphur contenc 
in the charge, and running with a hot top, will run hot blast on the 


37 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

same charge with a cool top; the calorific value of the sulphur in the 
charge will be utilized and that equivalent of heat directly saved in 
coke, and tenor of matte run to higher grade. A hot-blast furnace 
runs with hot top only when there is an excess of sulphur in the charge, 
more than is needed for fuel, and which must be oxidized off in the 
higher zones of the furnace to avoid too great lowering of matte tenor. 
This is accomplished by blowing in at the tuyeres an excess of air over 
and above that required in the smelting zone for the reactions there. 

Sulphur that is burned in the hot-blast furnace, and so utilized 
as fuel, is much of it melted down as a sulphide in the cold-blast furnace, 
and so run into the matte to lower its grade. But a limited proportion 
of sulphur can be admitted into the charge of a cold-blast matting fur¬ 
nace, because little of it can be utilized there as fuel and little more 
driven off. Much is, therefore, melted down in the form of a sulphide 
to make matte of low tenor. In the hot-blast furnace it may all be 
burned out, whatever its proportion to the total ore charge, at much 
less cost in one or more operations than the ore can he roasted in heaps 
or otherwise, and then smelted up to the desirable matte tenor in any 
cold-blast furnace at one or more operations. 

It must further be borne distinctly in mind that by far less air 
is required in the furnace when blown in hot than when blown in cold 
—less by nearly the amount that would be consumed in burning the 
excess amount of coke in the cold-blast furnace over that burned in the 
hot-blast furnace; that is to say, about eleven pounds of air less for 
each pound of coke saved from the charge by using heated blast, and 
it is only this less quantity of air required that has to be heated in the 
stove. It costs, by far, less to heat this comparatively limited quantity 
of air in a good stove than it costs to heat at the tuyere zone of a cold- 
blast furnace the vastly greater amount of air involved in burning the 
excess of coke involved in cold-blast, over and above that required for 
hot-blast smelting. 

In the event of too much sulphur in the ore—that is, more than is 
required as fuel and as a constituent of the matte—then by blowing in 
an excess of heated air the free atom of the sulphides is oxidized off 
in the heated zone of the furnace above the smelting zone. This loosely 
bound atom of sulphur will always be so burned off, and never reach 
the smelting zone to be utilized as fuel, if excess of air is blown, over 
that being absorbed or combined in the lower zones of the furnace; 
this will be the case whether there is fuel enough down there or not. 
But if no excess air is blown, then this sulphur, so loosely bound in the 
pyrites, can not burn above, and is thus brought down and burned in 


38 


i86o—C olorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

its appropriate place, where it is needed, the proper amount of oxygen 
being supplied, and no more than is demanded for the reactions. This 
free atom of sulphur takes fire at a much lower temperature than does 
the atom S in Fe S, which latter ignites only as the iron with which 
it is combined burns, and it is because of its lower ignition point that 
the free atom takes fire and burns in the higher zones of the furnace, 
when it has the oxygen up there to combine with. The ultimate com¬ 
bustion temperature is the same in either case under like blast pressure. 

U pipes must not be subjected to the direct action of 
violent currents of flame and incandescent products of 
combustion from the reverberatory roofs of the fire boxes 
that would melt or burn them. 

Hot-Blast Smelting 

Hot-blast smelting is engaging the serious attention of many in¬ 
telligent metallurgists, especially those engaged in copper matte smelt¬ 
ing in blast furnaces, and is admitted by most to be an imminent and 
most important improvement on the cold-blast system so general here¬ 
tofore. Early practice is always crude and extravagant. Improve¬ 
ments and refinements come later and gradually, with the accumulated 
experience of many workers. So it was in iron-smelting practice, and 
so it will be in copper smelting. The U pipe stove described and illus¬ 
trated in this book was the best in design and construction ever used for 
heating the air blast in iron smelting, before the introduction of the 
Siemens regenerative furnace, and is the best to use for copper smelting. 
In copper smelting, the Siemens regenerative or brick checkerwork 
stove can not be used as it is in iron smelting, because there is no carbon 
monoxide escaping as a waste gas from the copper furnace, to be 
utilized in such appliance, bleated air blast worked a revolution in the 
economy of the iron-smelting furnace, and so it will do surely in the 
smelting of copper. The waste product, carbon monoxide, in iron 
smelting is utilized for heating the blast. There is no carbon monoxide 
as waste product in copper smelting, but there is sulphur, which is 
usually a waste material, and may be used as fuel in copper smelting 
with yet more marked economy than the excess carbon monoxide for 
heating the air blast has effected in iron smelting. 

The more the subject is studied the more manifest becomes the 
proposition that, when the air blast is heated, all matte smelting may 


39 


i86o— Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

be more satisfactorily done, with less cost for fuel, with a cleanet slag - , 
with higher tenor of matte, with less furnace irregulai ities, with in¬ 
creased furnace capacity, and with less flue dust. 

The money it costs to heat the blast, in an efficient stove, is more 
than recovered by the consequent more regular and more reliable woi Ic¬ 
ing and increased capacity of the furnace. Then, where there is 30 
per cent, or more of sulphur in the charge, less than a quaitei the coke 
is required with the air blast heated to 800 degrees Fahrenheit, because 
the contained sulphur of the ore is utilized as fuel when the air blast 
is heated, while cold air blown on sulphur prevents it from burning, 
and sulphur does not burn at all in a cold-blast furnace unless in con¬ 
tact with heated air, which has acquired its heat from some other part 
of the furnace. 

With the less coke required in the furnace, proportionately less 
air is required, because with cold air blast certainly three-quarters, 
usually much more, of the air blown in is required for burning the car¬ 
bonaceous fuel, and, say, one-eighth for the other reactions involved. 
With such great reduction of the air necessary—that is to say, only 
one-half or three-fifths the air being required—comes the steadier work¬ 
ing and fewer furnace irregularities, for to the proportionately great 
quantity of cold air is chiefly due the furnace irregularities when other 
conditions are right. 

Any competent metallurgist knows how to compound a furnace 
charge from the materials available, that should run smoothly and 
without irregularities, and that would do so but for the unmanageable 
factor—cold air in so great proportional quantities. Heat the air 
sufficiently before blowing it in, so that but one-half as much is needed 
for a given charge of ore and less than one-third as much coke, and 
immediately furnace irregularities are avoided, the tenor of matte is 
improved and percentage of flue dust is reduced to a minimum. With 
a hot blast the smelting zone is held low down in the furnace, and hot 
top avoided, except in such cases as that where sulphur in the charge 
is in excess of all requirements for fuel and as a constituent of the 
matte; in which event one atom of sulphur may be burned off in the 
zone of the furnace immediately above the smelting zone by simply 
blowing in air in excess of that needed for the reactions incident to 
the smelting zone. 

Under such conditions a copper matting furnace is a roaster to 
its top, and the loosely bound atom of sulphur of iron pyrites is effect¬ 
ually disposed of in that way, if not needed below as fuel; or otherwise, 
if needed below, then by cutting off all excess of air above that needed 


40 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

in the smelting zone to combine with fuel, sulphur and iron, this sulphur 
is brought down to that zone and there utilized as fuel. 

In an ordinary blast furnace, running with cold air, a ton and a 
half to two tons of air is blown in for each ton of ore smelted. The 
specific heat of air is .25 while that of average ores and fluxes is about 
.20. Thus the number of heat units or quantity of heat involved in 
bringing this cold air to the smelting temperature, where it must be 
before any reactions can take place or the charge melted down, is 
double, or more than double, that involved in smelting the charge, and 
the fuel to produce this heat must be in the furnace at the smelting 
zone. This great amount of cold air impinging on the glowing coke 
at the tuyeres puts out the fire at that point—blows it out, as a candle 
is blown out. All cold-blast furnaces are black at the tuyeres, simply 
blown cold by the air blast. An air blast heated to 900 degrees Fahren¬ 
heit blown into a mass of glowing coke does not cool it or blow it out, 
there or elsewhere, but makes it glow the brighter and burn the hotter. 
But a quarter the coke, or less, is needed there, and hence but half the 
hot air to burn it, and for the other reactions involved; the velocity 
of resultant gases passing up through the furnace is but half, and flue 
dust is reduced proportionately. Or, conversely, if as much hot air is 
blown in as would be of cold air if running cold blast, and half as much 
fuel charged in, then double the amount of ore will be charged in, the 
velocity of gases will he the same and the amount of flue dust prac¬ 
tically the same; but the ore being doubled and the smelting capacity of 
the furnace doubled, the percentage of flue dust is reduced to half. 

In smelting oxides to black copper with cold blast, where the base 
is chiefly iron, the fuel required is about 16 per cent, of the charge, the 
percentage of fuel necessary, increasing where iron is replaced by lime. 

In smelting sulphides, containing 15 to 25 per cent, sulphur in the 
charge, with cold air blast, about 10 per cent, to 11 per cent, of the 
charge must be carbonaceous fuel. Thus some of the sulphur is burned, 
saving some coke, the air necessary to burn this sulphur being- in excess 
of that necessary to burn the coke and being heated in its passage 
through. 

The percentage of sulphur that a charge may carry when smelting 
with cold blast is limited, by reason of the tenor of resultant matte 
running lower and lower as percentage of sulphur is increased. When 
much carbon is being burned in the furnace, thus producing much 
heat, much sulphur can not he burned, and therefore, if a heavy charge 
of sulphides, they are mostly melted down, thus lowering the tenor of 
the matte. It is for this reason that a high-grade matte can not be 


41 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

produced in a cold-blast furnace with a high sulphur charge. With the 
air blast heated to 800 or 900 degrees, the heaviest sulphides are 
smelted raw, with 2 per cent, or 3 per cent., or less, of coke, or no coke 
at all, if the air blast is made hot enough, producing a considerably 
higher grade matte than is possible with the same ore charge in a cold- 
blast furnace. 

Expansion arid contraction strains are so compensated 
that no pipe or other part of our U pipe stove can ever 
fail by reason of such strains. Our U pipe stove, properly 
managed, is as durable as the average smelting furnace. 

We have never had a single pipe break from strains of any 
kind since we adopted our present system several years 
ago. The only possible danger is in burning, and, with 
our present system of constructing the heating chamber 
and protecting all U pipes from the direct action of cur¬ 
rents of dame and heat impinging upon them, they never 
should burn , and never can do so except through the 

grossest carelessness. 



42 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


End Jackets with Curved Corners 

The cuts on this page illustrate our form of curved corner cast 
iron end jackets when cast iron jackets are used and show the manner 
in which they form the round corners of the furnace in the bosh. By 
this system but three jacket patterns are required for a furnace of any 
size and in carrying- duplicate jacket sections at the furnace three 
extra jackets make an assortment. The side jackets are all straight 
on their edges. The end jackets curve around the corners in the bosh 
and come to straight lines where they meet at the sides. Corner jackets 
made in this form are as durable as side jackets which is not the case 
with square corner jackets having sharp angles in them to conform to 
the bosh of the sides. Those with sharp angles where they widen out, 
are much more likely to crack than when made with curves, as we have 
been making them for the last eight years. 




43 
































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Pyritic Smelting 

A blast furnace best adapted for copper matting of sulphide ores 
is precisely adapted for pryritic smelting, which latter is a copper matt¬ 
ing process, no more and no less, and the difference between the two 
methods lies in the quantity and character of fuel employed, the manner 
of employing it and the variation in reactions involved by reason of 
its character. 

If blast pressure is comparatively high through tuyeres relatively 
small, carrying no air in excess of that used for combustion at the 
tuyere zone, then there occurs a localization of combustion and conse¬ 
quent heat, and all material within that zone is quickly melted down 
with little change in grouping of constituents, while such carbon mon¬ 
oxide evolved as may escape oxidation there absorbs oxygen from the 
oxides in the hot zone above and thus reducing to metal results. With 
large volume of air blast at lower pressure, the oxidation of fuel is more 
gradual; the action at the tuyere zone is less intense, and while a melt¬ 
ing temperature must be maintained at that point, a surplus of heated 
air must pass on to the next layer or cross section above, where, by 
thorough exposure for sufficient length of time and in the presence 
of adequate heat, oxidation takes place more or less rapidly, depend¬ 
ing on character of material operated upon, and the equable propor¬ 
tioning of the conditions named above. Copper matting is essentially 
an oxidizing process as to the ores being treated, and every pound of 
carbonaceous fuel that it is necessary to use in the process for the 
purpose of producing heat whereby the necessary reactions may take 
place, is a direct obstacle to the realization of best results in tenor of 
matte, because in burning such fuel much carbon monoxide is produced 
which burns at once in the presence of the necessary heat, robbing FeO 
or SO2 or air, or all of them of oxygen, sending the iron of the first 
to the matte to encumber that instead of allowing it to combine with 
silica to form slag, forming sulphur from the second and sending the 
sulphur to the matte again to encumber that, reducing its tenor in¬ 
stead of allowing the sulphur to go off as sulphurous acid gas, and the 
third, the air, robbing that of oxygen that is needed to combine with 
the iron and the sulphur of the ore to dispose of them, the one for the 
slag as a necessary constituent, the other to the chimney and out of the 
way. There are none of the reactions involved in copper matting of 
pyriteous ores in which carbon is necessary or a desirable factor. Its 


44 


t86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 190s 

sole office in that class of smelting is the production of heat necessary 
to the operation. It follows that the less of carbonaceous fuel that can 
he burned in the furnace for the production of heat necessary, and the 
more the sulphur of the ore that can be utilized for heat production, 
the higher grade the matte product will be, other conditions being 
parallel. I he utilization of sulphur as fuel involves furnace condi¬ 
tions not vitally necessary to smelting with carbonaceous fuel, in that 
the calorific value in heat units in the former is much lower than in 
the latter. As between carbon and iron pyrites the amount of heat 
produced is approximately as oxygen combined, to-wit: Carbon for 
each pound burned combines with two and two-thirds (2.67) pounds 
of oxygen to produce 14,500 British Thermal Units of heat, while a 
pound of iron pyrites in burning combines with two-thirds of a pound 
of oxygen to produce 3,457 British Thermal Units of heat. 

In other words the pound of iron pyrites in burning combines with 
just one-cjuarter the amount of oxygen that a pound of carbon com¬ 
bines with, and the pound of iron pyrites evolves 3,457 British Thermal 
Units—not quite one-quarter as much as a pound of carbon evolves. 

The low relative calorific value of iron and sulphur renders them 
when used as fuel in the form of pyrites, the more sensitive to disturb¬ 
ing conditions in the furnace, in proportion probably as its lower ulti¬ 
mate calorific value, especially so to that of the cold air blast, introduc¬ 
ing as that does, an unmanageable retarding and depressing factor into 
the vital zones of the furnace. In direct proportion as the air blast is 
heated, reducing proportionately the amount of carbonaceous fuel 
necessary to be used in the furnace for heat production, and reducing 
also the amount of air to he heated at the tuyere zone, and heating to 
some degree on the outside whatever air is required, the conditions for 
regular and efficient working are improved, the extreme expansibility 
of air by heat rendering possible a most thorough distribution of the 
air, without the disturbing factor— cold. 

For reasons as given above, pyritic smelting, that is to say, that 
class of smelting requiring no carbonaceous fuel, has not been, nor can 
it ever be accomplished with cold air blast. There appears to be no 
doubt that all copper matting may be more efficiently and more eco¬ 
nomically done with the use of heated air blast than without it. 

The accompanying engraving represents one form of copper mat¬ 
ting furnace employing hot blast; the air being first heated in proper 
appliance is conducted through the cast-iron bustle pipes placed along 
the inside of the side caisson plates, through the cast-iron adjustable 
tuyeres. 


45 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


This furnace is equipped with our patented system of water- 
jacketed mantels, shown in perspective on page 12, and can likewise be 
used for copper-matting, employing cold blast when desired. 

We build these furnaces in all sizes furnished with steel plate 
jackets. 



COPPER-MATTING HOT-BLAST SMELTING FURNACE. 


The main reason for the superiority of our smelting furnaces over 
those of other firms is that we design and build each of our furnaces 
especially for each order as it is received. We have no “stock” furnaces 
and each furnace has an individuality and character all its own, that 
readily distinguishes it as a Colorado Iron Works Co.’s product. 














i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905; 


Interior Contour of Blast Furnaces 

For Both Lead Smelting and Copper Matting 

The diagram shown on this page is a simple illustration of interior 
contour of the silver-lead blast furnace now in common use, adaptable, 
by varying the proportions to suit the varying conditions involved, to 



all that general class of water-jacketed rectangular furnaces for smelt¬ 
ing ores for the recovery of their gold, silver, lead, copper, etc. 

Much has been written and said about the adaption of interior 
contour necessary for producing the end results desired, dividing the 
reactions in the material being smelted, into two general classes, oxida¬ 
tion and reduction. As a matter of fact, the interior contour of a 
furnace adapted to produce these reactions is the same for both. The 


47 



























i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — iqos 

interior contour may vary in proportions ; it certainly does as to height, 
but as to the general trend of interior wall lines the conditions are 
identical. 

The reactions, whether reducing or oxidizing, with carbon monox¬ 
ide as the principal agent in the former, and oxygen in the latter case, 
take place to best advantage under similar conditions of temperature 
and exposure, and the boshed zone affords the best facilities for ac¬ 
complishing either result. With large proportional quantity of car¬ 
bonaceous fuel burning in the melting zone and little or no free air 
passing through unconsumed, the atmosphere of the furnace becomes 
at once reducing as to certain conditions of the charge other than fuel, 
while with much excess of air blown into the melting zone and but a 
proportionately small amount of CO being evolved and passing up 
through the charge, the characteristic of furnace reactions becomes 
more distinctly oxidizing as to the ore. 

A straight furnace is simply a melting furnace, as a foundry cu¬ 
pola, and is adapted to melting pig iron or other product where a 
simple melting down of material without change in the grouping of 
its constituents is the object, while the duty of a smelting furnace is 
to produce such reactions as are necessary to change the grouping of 
the constituents of ore or other material being operated upon, forming 
new combinations whereby the worthless is slagged away and the valu¬ 
able concentrated; and as the evolved gases and oxygen are vital 
factors in the smelting process, their distinctive reactions taking place 
to best advantage at temperatures ranging from dull red heat up to 
the final melting point of the material acted upon, and as time is a 
factor in the operation, more thorough exposure and time for their 
action than is afforded within straight walls are necessary to best re¬ 
sults. Suitable proportions and characteristics of ore and fuel assumed 
in the charge, and volume and intensity of air blast into the hearth 
or tuyere zone, determine the preponderance of the one or the other 
of these reactions, oxidation or reduction, and it does not in the least 
interfere with or modify either the one or the other of them, other 
than favorably, if the furnace walls should be boshed outward at some 
point immediately above the melting zone; that is, at the incandescent 
zone where the preponderance of desired reaction, oxidation or reduc¬ 
tion, takes place rapidly. Those reactions take place as well in a 
boshed zone as in a straight one, and by far better in fact for a siven 
quantity of work done in a given time; that is, for a furnace of given 
duty, because boshing the furnace at the zone of incandescence next 
above the melting zone, admits a proportionately greater quantity of ore 


48 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

in a given depth, or conversely a given quantity of ore for a greater 
length of time for exposure to the evolved gases or free air, or both, 
from the melting zone, to act upon it. 

A copper matting furnace is a roaster to its top, and hence its 
efficiency in that regard for all that part above the bosh is as the cross 
section area of that part to cross section of hearth. For example: A 
hearth with cross section 10 by 3 feet equals 30 square feet, and with 
12-inch bosh of jacket sections, sides and ends, area at top of bosh 
equals 60 square feet. Thus double the amount of ore is constantly 
exposed to roasting action in all that part of the shaft between the top 
of bosh and top of shaft as would be exposed in a furnace with vertical 
walls, and has but to be supplied with the necessary oxygen to insure 
its proportionally increased efficiency, for in copper smelting practice 
the heat necessary to admit of reactions involved in roasting is always 
there and escaping into the air. Boshing a furnace does not involve 
contraction of hearth. Proportion properly the hearth or tuyere zone 
section in its depth or height, its width, volume and pressure of air 
blast for the desired results, and they will be realized whether -or not 
the walls are boshed above the melting zone, but more effectually 
proportionally as cross section of boshed zone is to cross section of 
hearth they are so boshed. At a melting temperature of say 2,100 de¬ 
grees F., the air and evolved gases in the furnace have expanded to 
more than five times the original volume of the air supplied to the 
furnace by the blower. This, with the blower pressure behind it, in 
a furnace with straight walls, causes a tremendous current upward to 
meet the ore in its rapid passage downward within the contracted lim¬ 
its of walls carried straight up from the hearth, allowing little time to 
any given piece or particle for exposure to the evolved gases or supplied 
air for their action upon it in their violent upward rush toward the 
top, which they quickly reach with small opportunity to have per¬ 
formed their appropriate functions in the reactions desired. 

Of these intensely heated gases CO2 is in considerable proportion 
where carbonaceous fuel is used, and so long' as it caiiies sufficient 
heat to admit of the reaction, is instant to give off an atom of its 
oxv°en to slowing' coke with which it comes in contact, evolving CO, 
which is ready again to burn on its first contact with oxygen in the 
presence of sufficient heat to admit of that reaction, and thus time is 
constant tendency to extension upward of the smelting zone. In a 
boshed furnace there is the opportunity for this immense volume of 
o-ases to expand laterally, and for equal volume a much less depth and 
wider area of ore is exposed for reactions and to take up theii heat and 


49 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

decrease their velocity, and thus highest temperatures and their neces¬ 
sary reactions are kept proportionally lower down in the furnace. 
Straight walls afford an easy path for the gases with heat and flame 
to rush upward, carrying with them a great deal of the dust and of 
the finest and lightest of the ores and calcines, while the heavier fine 
ores, as calcines, concentrates, etc., sift downward because the road is 
a straight one and because whatever coarse lumps of furnace material 
lies against the walls, have greater proportional interstices around them 
on the wall side than such lumps of material have in the body of the 
furnace where fines from all sides fall in and fill vacancies. In a fur¬ 
nace having boshes these difficuties are much lessened or avoided alto¬ 
gether, for the bosh interposes a break in the open path, which cor¬ 
rects the evil to a very great extent. 

An important office of the bosh is its effect in keeping the furnace 
material freely open to permeation by the escaping gases. In a furnace 
with straight walls the whole weight of all furnace material rests on 
the bottom, sliding smoothly down with little friction as it melts away 
at the tuyeres, and the softened, half melted mass at and near the tuy¬ 
eres packs tightly, tending to obstruct the circulation of the air blast. 
In a furnace with boshed walls the boshes take the weight of that part 
outside of the vertical lines up from the hearth and hence cause fric¬ 
tion on the column of ore within itself away from the walls directly 
above the hearth, reducing weight of ore column on the hearth and at 
the same time causing the ore to keep turning over and working within 
its mass, breaking up any aggregation of sintered material that may 
have formed above, and strongly counteracting the tendency there is 
to pack together by reason of the fines filling all interstices and to be¬ 
come impermeable to the gases on their passage upward. 

Whoever has operated lead furnaces having boshed sides and 
straight ends, and there are many of them, has noticed that the fire 
flames up the straight end walls much sooner and much more violently 
than up the boshed sides, and many metallurgists now insist on having 
the end walls as well as the sides built with bosh. And the angle of 
bosh has increased very much of late years, especially where there is 
much fines to smelt, some experienced furnace metallurgists requiring 
their water jacket sections made with 12-inch bosh in the 30 inches 
next above the angle. Zinc crusts and other accretions are as easilv 
barred off a boshed section as off a straight one. 

The bosh of a furnace is really thus an important factor in the 
smelting operation, and while it is possible to smelt ores in furnaces 
having no bosh, there are few, if any cases where the bosh would not 


50 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

be an improvement, and it may fairly be said that such smelting is 
done in spite of the absence of that important factor, rather than bet¬ 
ter without it. The alleged smelting furnace having straight walls 
from hearth to tunnel hole, is on its way out and will directly he re¬ 
garded as a relic of primitive methods. 

In the case of iron furnaces gradual reduction of size from the 
upper part of the boshed section to the top is a logical conformation of 
proportions to the conditions, for the gases cool and contract in their 
course upward, giving off their heat to the body of ore in the stack 
and continuing to produce the appropriate reactions on their upward 
flow until a zone of dull red heat is reached and passed, above which 
point such reactions practically cease. In lead furnaces where it is 
essential to keep the velocity of escaping gases as low as possible, it 
may be the better practice to carry the walls up straight from the top 
of the boshed section, as is now the almost universal practice, in order 
that there shall be a continually proportional reducing velocity of the 
current of gases as it cools and contracts on its way out. There, how¬ 
ever, is the disadvantage in this practice of always having a much 
greater Cjuantity of ore and fuel in the furnace than there would be if 
the stack were reduced toward its top, so that when it is necessary to 
run down for any purpose or to change the proportions of charge in 
order to affect the running of the furnace, it takes a longer time to 
accomplish it proportionally as difference in area. 

Temperature of Air Blast 

The cooling and retarding action of a cold air blast in a furnace 
is very great. For example: Assume a matting furnace say 42 inches 
by 168 inches, in which ten thousand cubic feet per minute of cold 
air is blown, and three hundred tons per day of 24 hours of ores and 
fluxes are being smelted. The ten thousand cubic feet of air blown in 
«ach minute weighs 761 pounds. Three hundred tons of ore and fluxes 
smelted per day, equals 417 pounds per minute. Thus, 761 pounds of 
air is involved in smelting 417 pounds of material. This cold air is 
blown into the melting zone where all the material is melted to fluid 
consistency. The smelting reactions have all taken place above, and only 
the melting remains to be done in the tuyere zone. Any material reach¬ 
ing this zone, in which the appropriate reactions have not taken place, 
is here simply melted down in its original condition as to its constit¬ 
uents, and passes off with the slag, or down into the matte, as the case 


51 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

may be, depending on its relative specific gravity, and is thus lost in the 
slag, or else lowers the tenor of the matte into which it falls. 

The specific heat of air is considerably greater than that of the 
ores and fluxes, or in other words, air takes a greater number of heat 
units to bring it to a given temperature weight for weight, than the 
average ores and fluxes take to bring them to that temperature. Thus, 
magnesian limestone takes practically the same number of heat units 
to bring it to a given temperature as does air pound for pound, but iron 
takes only half as much, or in other words, the heat absorbed by one 
pound of air to bring it to a given temperature, will bring two pounds 
of iron to the same temperature. In a general way it takes more than 
double the fuel to heat at the tuyere zone the cold air blown into a 
furnace than it does to smelt all material charged in. 

Cold air thus blown in such great quantities into the tuyere zone, 
is a very seriously disturbing factor in the operations of a furnace. 
It is true that many furnaces run with cold air blast in spite of the 
great disturbance created by it. No furnace but would smelt more 
economically and with less irregularities with hot than with cold air 
blast. No matting furnace in the world but would produce matte of 
higher tenor at the first operation with hot than with cold blast. The 
disturbing effect of so great a volume of cold air projected into the 
smallest part of the furnace at so great velocity is very great. It keeps 
much of the fire chilled down with a large part of the material cold 
and black opposite the tuyeres, reducing furnace capacity by the amount 
of room so taken up in the tuyere zone, and increasing tendency to 
irregularity. 

Vaporization of Jacket Water 

(Patented) 

Experience has proven this to be the best of all methods for apply¬ 
ing water for the cooling of jackets. There are localities in which there 
is a scarcity of water and difficulty is had in getting enough for coolino- 
the water jackets in the usual way, and even where the water is caught 
in ponds or tanks there is a shortage on account of the waste. In other 
places, as Leadville, Denver and other towns, some of the smelting 
companies buy the necessary water from the city water companies 
at great cost. It is easily possible to effect a very great saving of water 
by vaporizing it from jackets properly constructed for that purpose, 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

instead of simply passing the water through the jackets to cool them. 
I11 the following demonstration the British Thermal Unit is taken as a 
basis of heat measurement. 

Advantage is taken of the latent heat of steam which is 966 heat 
units ; that is to say, one pound of water at 212 degrees F. absorbs 
966 heat units in vaporizing to steam at the same indicated or sensible 
temperature, to-wit: 212 degrees. This data is for sea level Allowing 
water to be supplied to the jackets at 62 degrees and discharged at 
boiling, to-wit: 212 degrees, there has been absorbed by each pound of 
water but 150 degrees or heat units, which is all that it is possible to 
get where water instead of steam is discharged from the jackets. If 
vaporized to steam from initial temperature of 62 degrees, we have thus 
absorbed for one pound of water 150 units to boiling, plus 966 units to 
steam at 212 degrees indicated temperature, equals 1,116 heat units. 
That is to say, we have carried off 966 units of heat in steam from each 
pound of water without making the jackets any hotter than as though 
discharging boiling water. The proportion of gain or water saved is 
then 966 heat units, or 966 + 150 = 1,116 : 150, or 1,116 divided by 

150=7.44 b; that is to say, we use 7.44 times as much water if we 
discharge it boiling from the jackets as we would use if we vaporized 
and discharged it as steam, and we have kept the jacket no hotter in 
vaporizing the water to steam, than we would have done by simply 
discharging boiling water from them. In other words, we have used 
but a trifle more than one-eighth the amount of water by vaporizing it, 
than we would have used by discharging it boiling from the jackets, 
and as water is but seldom discharged so hot as 212 degrees, the 
amount required for vaporization will fall below one-eighth that usu- 
allv used for cooling, and will have kept the jackets at the same tem¬ 
perature in the one case as in the other. 

Some slight change from usual forms has to be made in the necks 
and backs of the jackets, as rounding corners and enlarging outlets, to 
avoid spasmodic ebullition and adapt them to the conditions involved. 

Steam may be discharged directly from the several water jacket 
sections, but a better method is to connect all the sections by means of 
pipes to a horizontal drum on each side of the furnace. The jackets 
and pipes are kept full of water. The level is maintained somwhere 
near the centers of the drums and the separation of steam takes place 
in the drums, and escape pipe leading the steam away to the open. 

The vaporizing system prevents deposit of lime and other impuri¬ 
ties on the inside of the jackets to some extent though not wholly. 
There is by far less water used in this system and to that extent there 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

is less deposit of sediment in the jackets. Water is not vaporized from 
the jackets but from the drums or tanks to which the jackets are con¬ 
nected. Hot water in the jackets rises to the top and thence up through 
the discharge pipes to the surface of the hot water in drum where it 
bursts into steam. Hot water cannot go to steam below when the way 
is open for it to rise, but steams at the surface. As all the steaming 
is done at the surface of the water in the drums so all or most of the 
combined impurities in the water are deposited in the drums which are 
very easily cleaned out and cannot be damaged by such deposits. 

This system is perfectly adapted to vaporizing", as also to over-flow¬ 
ing jacket water, no change whatever being necessary other than to 
open a valve in the apparatus when changing over from the one to the 
other. As the water supply runs short if overflowing, vaporization at 
once begins automatically and continues to compensate for whatever 
shortage there may be in overflow supply until the supply dwindles 
away down to one-eighth the ordinary supply necessary for overflow, 
when discharging boiling water, and at that point all is evaporated and 
the supply must not run lower. There is no disadvantage whatever in 
evaporating the whole necessary, while there is much advantage in the 
system, as pointed out above. 

It is sometimes the practice among smelter people to run so much 
water through the jackets that it is discharged at a temperature much 
below boiling. This is done under the impression that the jackets 
are more durable when kept at the lower temperature. This, how¬ 
ever, is a misapprehension, for as a matter of fact, cast iron as well as 
wrought iron has greater strength and a greater elastic limit at 400 
degrees F. than it has below that temperature. The heat of jackets 
will not be variable when vaporizing, or in any case where this system 
is used, as it is by the common method of discharging water when the 
supply turned on them is varied. 

There are more cast-iron jackets broken and more plate steel 
jackets damaged by running an excess of cold water through them 
than in any other way. The hotter jackets can be kept up to 400 
degrees F. the more durable they will be. 


54 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Explanation 

Referring to the cut 

The vaporizer as usually made and shown in this cut consists of 
a horizontal drum or tank on each side of the furnace; these tanks are 
connected together across one end of the furnace by a section of drum 
or tank of the same size as the drums on the sides, thus making a con¬ 
tinuous vaporizing drum or tank extending around both sides and one 
end of the furnace. The operation is as follows: 


1 

ir exhaust pipe 
U> 


( 



55 














































































































































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Water enters the vaporizer at the bottom of the back end section 
of the tank, through the automatic inlet valve, which admits only just 
enough water to take the place of that passing- off as steam. Its action 
is constant, it has no wearing parts, and hence is everlasting. 

In the cut, this end section of the tank, with the inlet valve and 
its chamber and float and the exhaust pipe, are shown in dotted lines, 
all being at the opposite end of the furnace from the observer and 
seen through, as it were. 

There is no possible contingency to prevent its working, and it 
always works just as long as the float floats, and it carries the valve 
with it, admitting- more or less water to maintain the level constant, in 
the tank. 

No water overflows from the tank or drum, or is lost in any way, 
except just what is vaporized and passes off through the exhaust pipe 
as steam. 

From the bottom of the tank water passes down through pipes into 
each jacket respectively. 

Two of these pipe connections, one on each side of the furnace, 
are shown in the cut, extending from the bottom of the tank downward 
and into the jackets above the tuyeres. Each jacket has its independent 
downpipes from the bottom of the tank, in like manner as those shown. 

The water entering the bottoms of the tank cold, so remains cold 
at the bottom, only rising as that at the surface vaporizes off and is 
continuously supplemented from below with cold water. The cold 
water entering the jackets by the supply pipes, as described above and 
shown in the cut, becomes heated in the jackets and rises to the top 
and thence out, discharging from the tops of the jackets through suit¬ 
able pipes at the surface of the water in the tank, where it bursts into 
steam and so passes out to the atmosphere through the exhaust pipe. 

This is the most absolutely reliable water system known for supply¬ 
ing cooling water to water jacket furnaces, keeping the water at an 
even and constant temperature in all the jackets at all times, and has 
the further very great advantage that it requires but one-eighth the 
amount of water that any other system requires to keep the furnace 
properly cooled. 


56 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co.- 


T 9°5 



ABOVE ILLUSTRATION IS OF A LEAD FURNACE EQUIPPED 

PORIZER APPLIANCE. 


WITH 


TIIE VA- 


We have built furnaces of every design shown in this 
booh, every one of which has operated successfully and 
given the greatest satisfaction. 









i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Smelting Furnaces 



The above engraving represents our standard type of silver-lead 
blast furnace with our patented arched-bar mantels as shown and de¬ 
scribed on page 11. The caisson is formed of two heavy steel side 
plates, rolled to a large radius, and the whole thoroughly stiffened with 
heavy tee rails. Some prefer ribbed cast-iron caisson plates, which 
will be furnished if preferred. The water jackets are made in sections, 
sides usually being in multiples of 18 inches. See interior contours 
on pages 59-60. 

Where the corrosive or heat action is unusually severe on the fire¬ 
brick lining immediately above the water jackets we have equipped lead 
furnaces with our water-jacketed steel girders. 

For this purpose we also furnish steel water jackets as shown on 
page 12. Using but one tier of jackets with interior contour same as 
where two tiers of jackets are used. This means fewer pipe connec¬ 
tions. Lead furnaces are made with either cast-iron jackets or steel- 
plate jackets, as desired. 


5 S 














i86o — Colorado iron Works Co. — 1905 

The tuyeres on furnace illustrated above are as shown on top of 
page 104, though in some cases we have furnished the gate tuyere shown 
on bottom of same page, or the quick opening valve as shown on 
page 67. 

Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 

The outline cuts on this page and the following illustrate in de¬ 
tail the furnace shown on preceding page, interior contour and super¬ 
structure. Some metallurgists prefer a slightly boshed brick shaft 
from mantels up to feed floor as well as a flaring crucible. This is 
simply a matter of brick construction. 



Feed floor heights, that is, distance from tapping floor to feed 
floor, vary all the way from 20 to 30 feet, although few furnaces are 
now being constructed less than 24 feet. The cut shows a common 
form of furnace superstructure, though we have plans of various de¬ 
signs. 


59 






























































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 



The superstructure shown 
in cut on this page is our 
usual form of brick con¬ 
struction, although in some 
cases a portable sheet-steel 
hood is used, which is rolled 
away to one side, leaving- 
entire top of shaft open for 
barring, as shown on 
page 88. 

We are also prepared to 
furnish furnaces with flush 
top and special construction 
to feed automatically from 
special bottom - discharge 
cars. See pages 108 and 
109. 

We recommend a slight 
bosh of brick work from 
jackets up to feed floor. We 
also build these furnaces 
with arched bar mantels on 
each side and end as shown 
on page 67. 


60 














































































































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co 


I 9°5 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 



The above outline cuts illustrate our modern silver-lead furnace, 
having cast-iron lower and steel-plate upper water-jackets, the latter 
being carried upon a steel I-beam frame. 

This type of furnace is especially applicable to lead ores carrying 
considerable sulphur on the charge. It is thoroughly constructed 
throughout for severe duty and heavy blast pressure. 

61 


































































































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — i 9°5 

Where steel-plate jackets are used throughout the\ aie constructed 
in a single tier having same interior contour as shown above and with 
fewer pipe connections. 

Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 




The above outline cuts illustrate our standard design silver-lead 
furnace, with steel plate water jackets made in narrow sections. 

This particular furnace is designed especially for 32 to 48 ounce 
blast pressure and for the most severe duty. The brick shaft is 
thoroughly bound up and stiffened with tie rods and I-beam binders. 
The water jackets are unusually high for lead furnaces, to prevent the 
burning out of fire brick lining, which in the ordinary furnace is but 
about 36 inches above the tuyeres. 

The jackets are constructed of best grade flange-steelplate. All 
seams being flanged outward, and no rivet heads of any kind to burn 
off and start leaks. In our construction all rivet seams are exposed 


62 












































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


on outer face of jackets and are in plain view of furnace men. Jackets 
are perfectly “stayed” on inside, but stays do not project through fire 
sheet. 




1111 




1 1 T 1 


1111 ttta 






fill 


in 


11 ITT 


-a 


1 


1 


-tI 


I 


I 'TC 


'i 'i' OViW 



‘-V.'VV-' 


O 


This cut shows construction of crucible for the furnace shown in 
preceding cut. The two steel side plates are perfectly reinforced by 
four heavy I-beams on each side, the curved corner plates taking up 
expansion of brick work. 


Briquetting Machinery 

While we do not build machinery for briquetting flue dust and 
fine ore, we are prepared to furnish such equipment either separately 
or with complete plants. The Chisholm-Boyd-White machine has 
proven satisfactory for this purpose. 


Our proximity to many large smelting plants gives us 
unequaled opportunities for observing the practical side 
of smelting, and our line of ore-reduction machinery is 
based on scientific principles for practical application. 


63 


































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — i 9°5 

Circular Silver-Lead Smelting 

Furnace 

For Mule-Back Transportation 



The above engraving is of a recent circular silver-lead furnace. 
36 inches internal diameter, having interior contour, per page 65. 

The water-jackets are constructed in ten vertical sections, and the 
whole capable of being transported upon backs of burros. Seams in 
jackets are all Hanged outward, and no rivet heads of any kind exposed 
to fire side. A lead cooler is shown at the right. This furnace has pre¬ 
cisely the same interior vertical contour and is constructed along the 
same lines as our rectangular lead furnaces. It is just as essential to 
have the interior contour correct in the small furnace as in the large 
one, as the metallurgical requirements are identical. 

Many failures of small smelting plants with circular furnaces 
have been traced to the disregard of the proper construction of the 
furnaces. 


64 




















i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 




Circular Silver-Lead Furnace 




The two engraving's on this 
sheet show our latest design 42- 
inch circular silver-lead furnace, 
the water jackets being con¬ 
structed in form of an octagon 
in eight vertical sections 60 
inches high. In constructing- 
furnaces in this form it is pos¬ 
sible to maintain the correct in¬ 
terior contour, and at same time, 
all seams in jackets being flanged 
outward, no rivet heads of any 
kind are exposed to inside of 
furnace. The brick shaft is car¬ 
ried upon a cast-iron mantel ring 
and four cast-iron columns. The 
steel hood on top of brick work 
telescopes into a stationary steel 
stack. When charging furnace 
or when barring down, this hood 
is raised up off of top of furnace, 
leaving entire area of shaft ex¬ 
posed. We build this type of 
furnace for lead ores in two sizes 
—36 and 42 inches internal di¬ 
ameter, respectively—the former 
having seven jackets, the set con¬ 
structed in form of a heptagon, 
the latter an octagon, with eight 
jackets. 


65 










































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 



The above engraving illustrates one type of 36X 144-inch silver- 
lead furnace, with special method of binding water jackets, consisting 
of a steel beam frame carried on outside of the four corner columns, 
with small jack screws between said frame and each jacket section. 
By this means any one or more of the jackets may be removed without 
taking down the frame, and at the same time without weakening the 
binding of the remaining jackets. 

The sides of caisson are made of heavy steel plate, rolled to a large 
radius, and reinforced with a heavy section of tee rails. The water 
jackets are constructed in narrow sections of a special mixture of cast- 
iron, as we are furnishing to nearly all the large lead smelters through¬ 
out this country and Old Mexico. If preferred we will equip lead fur¬ 
naces with our patented arch-bar mantels, as illustrated on page 11, 
which is our standard construction. 


r. 


66 






i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 



This engraving represents our latest design of a ^6-inch x 108- 
inch silver-lead furnace with flange steel water jackets and our arched 
bar mantels. 

The tuyeres are of cast-iron with removable cap, whereby entire 
area of tuyere is obtained for removing slag, barring, etc. The blow 
pipes are made of gas pipe, in each of which is provided a quick open¬ 
ing gate valve, by which means each tuyere is under absolute control. 
Tuyeres are 18-inch centers. 

j 


67 








i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 



The above engraving is of a modern silver-lead furnace recently 
built and shipped by us to Greece. The water jackets are of flange 
steel of extra beighth, being equal to one tier of the usual lower and 
one of upper jackets, and having the same interior contour. This is 
for cases where percentage of zinc and sulphur in the charge are un¬ 
usually high. This furnace was designed and constructed for 48-ounce 
blast pressure and very severe duty, the crucible being stiffened in a 
most thorough manner, as well as the brick furnace shaft. This fur¬ 
nace has a portable steel hood as on page 88, which, when rolled away 
from top of furnace, uncovers entire area of shaft for purpose of bar¬ 
ring down zinc crusts. Each tuyere has a quick opening gate valve 
in order to keep each tuyere in absolute control. 


68 







i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— iqo.s 

Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 



The above engraving shows a lead blast furnace, 42x160 inches, 
shipped recently to southeast Missouri to treat the lead ores in that 
locality. 

The water jackets are constructed of heavy steel plate, and are 
72 inches high, in sections 40 inches wide. 

The crucible is built exceptionally heavy, the side plates of steel 
reinforced with four 12-inch steel I-beams, and the end plates of cast 
iron, heavily ribbed. 

The lead spout on side of furnace is unusually long, in order to 
carry the liquid lead into a large lead kettle. 

The blow-pipes are made of wrought-iron pipe, in each being 
provided a quick-opening gate valve, with which blast to any one or 
more of the tuyeres may be partially or wholly shut off as desired. 

The cast-iron skew-backs on top of furnace columns carry side 
and end brick arches to support brick furnace shaft above, and super¬ 
structure. 


69 













i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

On bustle-pipe inlet there is provided a quick-opening' gate valve. 

The brick furnace shaft, not shown, is thoroughly stiffened with 
steel I-beam hinders extending horizontally around the shaft with 
corner connections. 

This furnace has the automatic charging system, as shown and 
described on pages 108-9. 

The entire furnace is constructed in the most substantial manner 
possible, for large capacity and hard driving. 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 

Small Rectangular Type 



The above engraving represents our 36-inch by 90-inch silver-lead 
furnace, showing a thoroughly bound-up steel crucible. 

The water jackets are of special mixture of cast-iron 18 inches 
wide and 54 inches high—the end sections being boshed half amount 
of those on the sides. 

If preferred we will furnish arched-bar mantels on each side and 
end as shown on page 67. 

The tuyeres in this furnace are as shown on top of page 104, placed 
at eighteen-inch centers. 


70 












i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Silver-Lead Smelting Furnace 

Small Rectangular Type 



This engraving represents our 36 by 31 -inch silver-lead furnace, 
with rectangular form of steel-plate caisson, with rounded corners. 

Where a furnace of small capacity is required, say, 20 to 25 tons 
per day, we recommend this form of furnace rather than a circular 
one. The cost of this furnace erected, however, is greater than a 
circular one having same number of square feet of hearth area by 
reason of brick shaft and superstructure. 


71 













i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


i 9 ° 5 


Sectional Silver-Lead Furnace 

For Mule-Back Transportation 



This engraving shows a 36 by 60-inch silver-lead furnace con¬ 
structed in sections for mule back transportation. The general form 
and construction closely resembling our standard lead furnace. 

In place of the I-beam mantel frame as shown we recommend the 
arched-bar mantels on each side and end as shown on page 67. 

The water jackets in this furnace are of cast iron 42 inches high 
and 12 inches wide placing tuyeres 12 inches to centers. 






i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


T 9°5 


Circular Copper Furnace 



The engraving and sectional views on this page show our circular 
copper furnace with plate-steel water jacket constructed in vertical 
halves and continuous bosh from bottom to top. The crucible in this 
case is built entirely independent of jacket and where oxidized or 
copper ore is to be smelted, the crucible is made in two pieces and 
securely bolted together. The circular wind box being also in halves, 
the whole may be very easily taken apart for cleaning out. Each 
tuyere is entirely independent of all others and has an air-tight gat<i 
in order to control the air blast to each one. 





















































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Reverberatory Smelting Furnace 

This outline cut shows our best form of reverberatory smelting- 
furnace for the system of copper smelting or matting as carried on 
extensively in Montana and elsewhere. The entire hearth is built in a 
plate-steel pan, whose sides extend up about three feet. This pan 



is placed on a series of steel I-beams and low brick piers. From top 
of pan curb up to top of hearth walls, and also the entire fire-box, are 
encased in cast-iron plates, thereby enclosing entire furnace in iron and 
steel, to prevent molten matte or slag from seeping through walls and 
down into foundation. 

Interior contours of these furnaces are constructed differently to 
operate under different conditions. 

We build the iron work for any size furnace desired. 

Where fuel is expensive or coal is of an inferior quality we would 
suggest parties writing to Mr. W. H. Adams, McKay Building, Port¬ 
land, Oregon, for information regarding gas-fired furnaces, a process 
which he has perfected. 


74 
































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— T 9°5 


Copper-Matting Furnaces 



The skeleton cut on this page illustrates a lateral cross-section 
of our latest type of copper-matting furnace. The main nr lower steel- 
plate water jackets extend down and rest on the cast-iron base plate, 
thereby forming a rigid base for same, and there is never any possibility 
of matte leaking out of a hearth of this construction. The auxiliary or 
top jackets are supported by a steel I-beam frame resting on the corner 
columns. The furnace is water-jacketed from hearth up to within a 
few inches of feed floor, which is the best form of construction for 
strictly copper-matting furnaces. 

Many copper-matting furnaces are built with jackets in single 
sections from base-plate to feed floor, divided vertically into sections 
of four or five feet in width and we regard this as the best method of 
construction. 75 







































Copper-Matting Furnace 



RECTANGULAR BLACK COPPER FURNACE, 36x60 INCHES. 


AND ENDS. 


BOSHED SIDES 


This engraving illustrates one of our 36-inch by 60-inch furnaces 
arranged for inside separation, having lower boshed side and end 
water-jackets, with a tuyere at each end, but as all tuyeres have air¬ 
tight valves, end tuyeres may be cut out if desired. The imoer steel 
jackets are supported in same manner as in our standard matting 
furnaces. 76 











Copper-Matting Furnace 



The above engraving shows a standard type of copper-matting 
furnace, having interior contour shown on page 83. It is water-jack¬ 
eted from base plate to feed floor, the jackets constructed in two tiers, 
forming a lower and an upper set, the former extending down to and 
resting on the base plate, and the latter supported from the four cor¬ 
ner columns. All jackets are made of flange-steel plate, no rivet heads 
of any kind being exposed to the fire. The lower jackets are built in 
sections from 40 to 60 inches wide, and in the larger furnaces the 
upper side jackets are made in two sections on each side, carried on 
an I-beam frame. The tuyeres (see page 104) are usually placed twelve 
inches between centers. Idle above illustration shows a copper water- 
jacketed trap spout, generally placed on the side where furnaces are 
of great length. We have several designs of furnace superstructures, 
but unless otherwise required we furnish the construction as on page 83. 

This type of furnace when constructed to operate with hot blast 
not exceeding 1,000 degrees F., is as shown above, the bustle pipe and 
blow pipes being made of heavy sheet steel, the former being lined with 
a special vitrified asbestos cell lining. 

We build these furnaces in any size desired. 


77 












i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



This furnace is of the same type as our standard copper-matting 
furnace per pages 77 and 86, except that lower set of jackets rest on a 
crucible for inside separation if desired. 

Both upper and lower jackets are constructed as in our standard 
furnace, of flange-steel plates with all rivet heads exposed to the out¬ 
side. See outline cut of this furnace on page 83. 


78 















i86o—C olorado Iron Works Co. 


— I 9°5 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



The above is an engraving of a 42 in. x 120 in. copper-matting 
furnace, being very similar to our standard design except that blow 
pipes are of gas pipe and that the upper side jackets are in one piece 
and carried directly upon brackets cast to the four corner columns. 




















i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



The above engraving is of a 40-inch by 96-inch hot blast copper¬ 
matting furnace shipped recently to Idaho. The set of upper water 
jackets are carried upon brackets cast to the four corner columns. 
The bustle pipe is lined inside with vitrified asbestos cell lining to re¬ 
duce heat radiation to a minimum. The bustle pipe extends entirely 
around the furnace, one end having an opening and gate for cold-blast 
inlet (if hot-blast stove should temporarily be out of commission) and 
in the other end is an opening and gate for hot blast inlet. A frame of 
cast iron beveled feed plates extends entirely around inside of mantel 
frame between feed floor and top of upper jackets as shown on page 83. 


79 


















i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Hot Blast Copper Matting 

Furnace 



This engraving represents one of our recent types of copper¬ 
matting or pyritic furnaces, smelting with a highly heated air blast. 

The tuyeres are of cast iron, and gas-pipe blow pipes covered 
with asbestos. The bustle pipe is lined inside with a vitrified asbestos 
cell lining, which we have found very satisfactory for the purpose of 
preventing heat radiation to the greatest possible degree. 

The interior contour of the above furnace is shown on page 84, 
having the frame of cast-iron beveled feed plates extending entirely 
around the furnace between tops of water-jackets and feed floor. 


80 








i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



The above engraving shows a copper-matting furnace similar in 
construction to our standard type, except that arched-bar mantels are 
employed, and furnace bottom plate is carried on a movable truck. The 
set of lower jackets are carried by hangers from the water-jacketed 
girders or top jackets when bottom plate is taken away. 

The truck arrangement may be adopted on any of our other de¬ 
signs of copper-matting furnaces if desired. 


81 




















i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



The above engraving represents a 36-in. by 60 in. copper matting- 
furnace of our standard type, with riveted steel lower and upper water- 
jackets, and an air-jacketed hood similar to that described on pages 
87-8. In short furnaces, as this one, feed doors may be located at each 
end of hood, although we prefer to air-jacket the entire hood, and have 
feed openings on sides. 


82 













































i86o —Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 



These two outline cuts represent our latest type of 42x120 inch 
standard copper-matting furnace, having steel lower and upper water 
jackets. In place of filling the intervening space between top of 
upper jackets and feed-floor with fire-brick, we use a cast-iron beveled 
frame extending entirely around furnace on inside of a steel mantel 
frame, thereby doing away with any brick work at that point. 

In this pamphlet we show various forms of copper-matting fur¬ 
naces, and where a combination of any special features is required, 
will gladly submit specifications and prices. 

An auxiliary tap jacket and spout are provided at one side of 
furnace to be used in case of emergency. 


83 




















































































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper-Matting Furnace 




The above is an outline illustration of a recent type of copper 
matting furnace having continuous set of steel jackets from hearth 
to feed floor. This construction forms but one point at which sedi¬ 
ment is deposited that being below matte and slag level, hence exclud¬ 
ing all danger of a jacket burning out through sediment. 

The set of jackets is thoroughly stiffened at three points; the I 
beam carrier frame near top,—A binder frame near center and heavy 
steel set screws at extreme bottom through lugs cast on edge of fur¬ 
nace bottom plate. 


84 





























































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper F urnace 



The above is an outline cut of Copper Furnace of the type shown 
011 page 80, except that it has a crucible for smelting oxidized or 
carbonate copper ores to “black' or metallic coppei, 01 sulphide copper 
ores to a high-grade matte where it is preferable to make inside sepa¬ 
ration. 

We have built furnaces for such ores with jackets about 72 inches 
high, balance of the distance up to feed floor being in form of a brick 
shaft as in a lead furnace, we do not, however, recommend this con¬ 
struction for straight copper matting furnaces. 


85 














































































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper Furnace 




The above is an outline cut of copper furnace as shown on page 
85, except that there are two tiers of steel water jackets, the upper 
set being carried independently of any other part of furnace by means 
of a steel I beam frame supported by the four corner columns. 


86 











































































































































































































































































































i86o—-C olorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 

Copper-Matting Furnace 






These outline drawing's represent our standard rectangular cop¬ 
per-matting furnace having a sheet-steel air-jacketed hood or super¬ 
structure from 20 to 30 feet high, and same size as opening in furnace 
at feed floor. Air blast is blown into top of hood, air space over top 
and both sides and ends. To the lower ends immediately below feed 
floor on the two sides of hood, direct connections are made to blow 
pipes. On each side is provided a charge opening fitted with or with¬ 
out doors as may be preferred. The entire hood is carried by brackets 
on furnace mantel frame so as to make it entirely independent of bal¬ 
ance of furnace. The hood is constructed in three or more sections, 
to facilitate handling, and bolted together with angle iron and asbestos 
gaskets. Walls of air space are connected together with wrought 
iron stays riveted on about 18 inches apart each way. It has been 


87 









































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


found in actual practice that by so warming the air blast that the fur¬ 
nace to an extent will operate automaticallly, that is to say, should 
too much heat rise to top of charge, that air is heated to a higher tem¬ 
perature proportionately and consequently tends to bring the combus¬ 
tion down to the tuyeres where it belongs. Moreover, in using such a 
large hood, the velocity of the gases is reduced therein and a great per¬ 
centage of the fine material drops down into the charge. 


Portable Steel Furnace Hoods 



The above outline cut shows a portable hood constructed of 
heavy steel plate and angle iron. It is particularly adapted to lead 
furnaces. It has two flat wheels on each end with eccentric axles. 
When hood is to be removed from top of furnace, the sleeve forming 
connection with the stationary steel stack is let down, and hood raised 
an inch or so off of feed floor by means of the eccentric axles, and 
rolled off on the floor to one side, leaving entire top of furnace exposed 
for barring down accretions, the fumes passing up through the stack. 

While the cost of this hood is greater than the iron work as 
usually furnished for brick superstructure there is practically no dif¬ 
ference in the final erected cost. 


88 
















































































































i860 Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

Hexagonal Copper Furnace 



This is a new type of circular steel copper furnace of which we 
have built quite a number. Formerly, in order to maintain the ver¬ 
tical interior contour shown in cut on page 92, the steel jacket had 
to be constricted in three horizontal rings or sections, which was found 
not entirely satisfactory on account of accumulation of deposit in 
bottom of the three sections. I11 the present form of construction, 
we make our 36-inch diameter furnace in the form of a hexagon; the 
42-inch in form of a heptagon, and the 48-inch an octagon, that is to 
say, the water jackets are constructed in six, seven and eight vertical 
sections, having a continuous water space up to feed floor, the jackets 
all being flanged outward, as in our rectangular furnaces, with only one 
point for deposition of sediment, that being at extreme bottom of jack¬ 
ets ; and furthermore, there are no rivet heads of any kind exposed to 
fire surface of furnace. This not only requires fewer pipe connections, 


89 













i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

but also vastly facilitates the taking down of furnace, or in case any one 
of the jacket sections should become damaged by any means, entire fur¬ 
nace need not necessarily be dismantled, but the damaged section can be 
replaced at a comparatively low cost. 

The interior (cross vertical section) contour of this furnace is 
precisely the same as in the large rectangular ones, and as the metal¬ 
lurgical requirements in both cases are identical, the interior contour 
should, in no manner, be different. 

The illustration shows an attached forehearth, designed by Mr. 
J. L. Wells, E. M., former superintendent of the Consolidated M. and 
S. Co., at Cerrillos, N. M. We do not, however, include this device 
unless especially requested. 


Circular Furnace Hoods 



The above engraving illustrates one form of sheet-steel hood as 
used for circular copper furnaces, a counterbalanced charging door 
being provided on two sides, being straight and not to conform to cir¬ 
cle of the hood proper, thereby avoiding inconvenience of doors binding. 

d he same type of hood is used on our hexagonal, heptagonal and 
octagonal furnaces. 

The telescoping hood shown on page 65 has its advantages in 
that f 111 nace chaiges can be shovelled in entirely around the furnace 
and when barring down by telescoping the hood up into the stationary 
stack, opens up entire area of shaft. 


90 












i860 Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Circular Copper Furnace 



The above engraving and outline sectional views show our old- 
style circular copper furnace, especially applicable to smelting oxidized 
or carbonate ores, or easily-smelted sulphides. By using our gate 
tuyeres, air blast to each tuyere is under absolute control of furnace- 
man. This form of furnace being of simple construction, is much less 
expensive to build than those shown on page 89. 


91 























































i860— Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Octagonal Copper-Matting 

Furnace 



The two outline drawings on this page illustrate in plan and verti¬ 
cal section, the new type of circular furnace described on pages 89-90. 
These furnaces are particularly adapted to smelting copper sulphide 
ores to matte, the (vertical) contour being along the same lines as our 
rectangular copper-matting furnaces. 

This type of furnace will give equally as good results on oxidized 
or carbonate ores, as on sulphides, in the former case, separation being 
carried on in crucible, while in the latter, matte is separated on outside 
of furnace in some form of settler, and furnace spout may be, if de¬ 
sired, run with a trap blast and continuous flow 7 of slag and matte. 


92 
































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Octagonal Copper Furnace 

For Oxidized or Carbonate Ores 





The outline cut shown on this page is of the same form of con¬ 
struction as the hexagonal furnace shown on page 92, except that 
it has a special crucible of heavily-ribbed cast-iron plates in sections, 
forming an octagon, which can readily be taken apart if necessary. 
The crucible is unusually deep, to allow the molten metallic or '‘black” 
copper to lie upon and against the fire brick lining, to prevent chilling. 
As molten copper loses its heat very rapidly and easily, every pre¬ 
caution must be taken to avoid chilling as the copper lies in the cruci¬ 
ble. From the lower spout is drawn the metallic copper, and from the 
one opposite, the slag. This type of furnace, by filling in the crucible, 


93 





































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

works equally as well on copper sulphide ores to produce a copper matte. 
We build this furnace either in hexagonal, heptagonal or octagonal 
form, 36, 42 and 48 inches internal diameter respectively. This type of 
furnace has large capacity, particularly so on oxidized or carbonate 01 es, 
producing metallic or black copper. 

Copper-Smelting Furnace 

Round Form with Vaporizing Appliance 



This engraving shows our improved form of circular furnace 
equipped with our patented jacket water vaporizer appliance. The 
illustration shows the old style construction of water jackets, which we 


94 






i86o— Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

have since abandoned for cases where water is not the best, and now 
furnish usually eithei the hexagonal, heptagonal or octagonal forms, 
referred to on pages 89-92. 



The above illustration is of a large copper-matting furnace 
equipped with the vaporizer appliance. 


Each of our furnaces is built especially for the condi¬ 
tions under which it will be worked. We liaye no “stock” 
furnaces, but while we adhere to certain standard designs 
each of our furnaces has an individuality and character 
all its own that readily distinguishes it as a Colorado 
Iron Works Co.’s product, and superior to furnaces built 
by other firms. 


05 

















i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Steel Plate Water Jackets 

All steel plate water jackets when constructed after our own 
designs are made of best grade of 60,000 pound T. S. flange steel. 
We have developed the construction so that no rivet or stay-bolt heads 
of any kind are ever exposed to fire side of jacket, but all rivet seams 
come in the outer face of jacket in plain view of furnace men. All 
corners are driven in, making entire inner shell of jacket in one con¬ 
tinuous piece. 

Our method of tuyere opening construction is such that no rivet 
heads are exposed around them on fire side, but at that point the thim¬ 
ble is turned down to a shoulder and beaded over inner shell of 
jacket like a boiler flue. The outer end of this thimble is riveted to 
outward-flanged collar in outer shell of jacket. This greatly simpli¬ 
fies the removal of a thimble should such ever be necessary. Of all 
places in a jacket, rivet heads should be avoided around fire side of 
tuyere openings. We adopted this system years ago and have never, 
in a single instance, had a complaint. 

The jackets are thoroughly stiffened inside with stays, which are 
riveted to outer shell, but do not protrude through the inner. 

Our construction of discharge necks is such as to make it utterly 
impossible to trap steam, as is clearly shown on page 83. 

We are always pleased to submit prices on steel-plate water 
jackets from our customers’ own drawings, and as we have a modern 
equipment for doing this class of work, we are in a position to make 
low prices on same. 


96 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


W05 


Dust Chambers 



The above outline drawing shows an efficient and popular form of 
dust chamber, especially in connection with copper-matting furnaces, 
where practically all the values are carried out of the furnace mechani¬ 
cally, if at all. This chamber consists of a sheet-steel flue constructed 
balloon-shaped in cross-section, in any diameters from 4 to 10 feet, hav¬ 
ing dust draw-off gates at intervals as shown. One end of the flue is 
closed, the other connecting onto a brick sub-stack. It is suspended 
over feed floor back of furnace, leaving ample head room over floor. 
The flue may be made in any desired length, the sections being bolted 
together with angle iron. Especially in copper-matting furnaces where 
some 75 per cent, of the dust is collected within some 50 feet from the 
furnace, a comparatively short steel flue may be used connecting end 
of same onto a brick dust chamber. 

Where flues of large diameters are used, and a very large amount 
of flue dust is made, we can furnish them with a screw conveyor which 
conveys the dust toward one end of the flue, depositing same into a 
bin, thereby doing away with hand work. 






































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Portable Forehearths 



This engraving shows our standard form of portable forehearth 
or matte settler, though for large furnaces we recommend the station¬ 
ary forehearth shown on page 100, especially where matte storage is re¬ 
quired for a Bessemerizing plant. 

This portable forehearth has cast-iron body made in sections of 
heavily-ribbed cast-iron plates bolted together, ready for fire-brick 
lining. Matte is tapped through an adjustable pure-copper tap plate. 

We build this forehearth in the following sizes: 

36 inches wide, 54 inches long, 30 inches deep. 

36 inches wide, 72 inches long, 36 inches deep. 

48 inches wide, 60 inches long, 30 inches deep. 

72 inches wide, 72 inches long, 36 inches deep. 


98 





Forehearths 



The above engraving- shows an unusually large portable fore¬ 
hearth, of which three were recently shipped to Greece. The body is 
io feet 8 inches long, 6 feet 6^4 inches wide and 4 feet 6 inches deep. 
In this instance they are used as matte and lead settlers, having taps 
on one side for both. By reason of the great length the sides were 
constructed of one-half inch steel plate, reinforced with steel I beams. 



This engraving shows a type of forehearth as used in some places 
under the slag spout of silver-lead furnaces. It will be observed that 
the bottom of this forehearth is made in the form of a pan, in which 
molten lead is placed to form a body for such lead as may be separated 
from the slag and matte in the forehearth. 

L.dfC, 99 











i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Forehearths 



The above cut represents form of forehearth for copper-matting 
furnace, with or without a turntable placed on truck underneath body. 
These are furnished in several sizes. 



The above type of stationary forehearth is at the present time in 
more general use than the square or rectangular, mounted on trucks. 


100 


























i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

We have built them as large as 15 feet diameter inside of the steel curb 
and by reason of the great matte-settling area, the danger of mechan¬ 
ical loss of matte is reduced to a minimum. By lining the steel with 
some highly refractory material, as Grecian magnesite brick, it causes 
but little trouble in burning out or corroding. Various forms of matte 
taps are employed, though a plain plate of 96 per cent. C11 has been 
found quite satisfactory in many places. After the forehearth has 
been in use a short time, a self-supporting crust forms a cover over the 
top, which will safely carry the weight of a man; this crust arrests heat 
radiation from the forehearth. 

Any special form of matte-tapping arrangement may be used in 
place of the copper tap plate. 


Lead Coolers 



The above engraving shows a lead cooler which is used to receive 
the lead from the blast furnace. We recommend them for all sizes of 
lead furnaces, as they make it possible to ship a cleaner bullion, b\ skim¬ 
ming before ladling the lead into molds. The cooler has a fire box un¬ 
der it which keeps the lead in perfect liquid condition to remove dross. 

101 











i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Furnace Trap Spouts 



The above outline perspective shows a simple and very efficient 
trap spout for copper matting furnace. It is constructed of cast iron 
plates bolted together, lined inside with magnesite or other highly re¬ 
fractory brick. To the outer or overflow end is fitted a water jack¬ 
eted tip made of pure copper, which resists the greatest cutting effect 
of the matte. 

A satisfactory trap spout has been the subject of much study with 
us, and having given this one a thorough trial, have found it to be 
equally as efficient and far less expensive than others in general use. 

This form of spout can be made adjustable if desired, for the 
purpose of easily changing the amount of trap, or if furnace is to be 
run with intermittent tap. 


102 









































































t86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— 1905 


Improved Air-Blast Gates 



The above engraving shows an improved type of self-contained 
air-blast gate operated with rack and pinion. They are well ribbed to 
prevent springing of parts to cause leakages. Where gates are closed 
or opened frequently and rapidly, it is the best type on the market, 
and is easily operated even against a heavy blast pressure. Including 
the largest size, they are compact, and occupy a comparatively small 
amount of space. 

We can furnish the main sizes, 15, 18, 20, 24 and 30-inch. 


103 






i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Blast Furnace Tuyeres 



The outline cut above represents our standard type of tuyere for 
lead furnaces. When this form is used, jackets have a faced recess, 
against which the tuyeres set, and by using asbestos packing, are per¬ 
fectly air-tight. The advantage of this tuyere over those having a 
nozzle projecting into tuyere opening in water jacket is, that tuyere 
openings may be reduced in area if such may be found necesssary. 



The above cut represents our improved type of cast-iron tuyere 
for blast furnaces. In each is provided an air tight gate, in order to 
regulate to a nicety, air blast to each individual tuyere. The outer 


104 


















i860 Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

end is fitted with a removable cap having intermittent thread, so that 
cap may be removed quickly, and open up entire end of tuyere, or when 
simply barring into furnace, the peephole nipple in center of cap is 
taken out. This type of tuyere is also used in our hot-blast copper¬ 
matting furnaces where blast is heated to not exceed 1,000 degrees F. 



The above cut shows t_\pe of tuyere which we use in furnaces 
where gas pipe blow pipes and the quick opening valves are used as 
shown in the furnace on page ( 57 . The cap on end of tuyere has an 

ead thereby enabling a quick removal of the cap and 
securing opening the entire area of tuyere. 

General Plans of Smelting Plants 

The general arrangement of smelting plants either for lead or 
copper ores depends upon the location of smelter site and the work 
to be performed. This applies particularly to custom smelters and 
more especially so to lead smelters treating custom ores, wherein 
usually sulphide crushing mills, sampling works and roasting furnaces 
are necessary. 

We have built many smelters within the past 25 years and in no 
case have two been built from the same set of plans—locally, the con¬ 
ditions requiring special arrangement. It is for this reason that we 
do not illustrate any general plans in this book. In designing a plant 
for custom work many points must be taken into consideration as to 
the quantity and general character of the various ores and fluxes that 
will be received at the plant. 

The modern smelting plant of to-day must be designed by en¬ 
gineers thoroughly familiar with every detail in connection with the 
smelting business, to the end that the plant be designed with a view 


105 



















i860— Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

to most economical operation. In plants treating as much as 500 tons 
daily we may note: the automatic charging of blast furnaces; power 
generating plants by water, steam turbines, tandem or triple com¬ 
pound condensing engines ; the electrical transmission of power; water 
granulation of slag or the disposition of molten slag in trucks handled 
by electric power; mechanical ore roasting furnaces; the transporta¬ 
tion of ore, fluxes, coke, etc., from one part of the plant to another by 
electric power, and everything handled automatically wherever pos¬ 
sible. 

In designing such a plant all points must be carefully considered, 
such as the location of the plant, ore supply, fluxes, fuel, etc., and can 
only be determined by a visit of our experienced men. 

Our many years of practical application in the designing' and build¬ 
ing of smelting furnaces and complete equipments places us in a po¬ 
sition to furnish and build the most modern and economical plants, 
after having secured all the necessary information and data, and 
we will be very glad to correspond with parties contemplating smelting 
operations and to give them any information we can in connection 
with this important subject. 

As the illustrations in this book plainly show, we have a very 
great variety of furnace designs, some one or more adapted to every 
conceivable location, capacity and condition of ore, fuel and fluxes, 
and there is thus no necessity for any customer spending money for 
new designs. 

Every cut in the book represents furnaces that we have built and 
have given satisfaction. 


We have been engaged in building smelting furnaces 
and equipments since 1879, and today our furnaces are in 
successful operation in all parts of our own country and 
in no less than ten foreign countries, including British 
Columbia, Old Mexico, Cuba, Nova Scotia, Australia, Tas¬ 
mania, England, France, Belgium, Greece, etc. 


106 



i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Automatic Furnace Charging 

(See Illustration on following page) 


Description 

In this method the furnaces are built flush with feed floor, the 
downtakes taking off at one end of furnace. A rectangular-shaped 
steel hood, a trifle larger than inside opening of furnace, covers the 
top, this hood having two small truck wheels at each end, for the 
purpose of rolling the hood away from top of furnace when barring- 
down or repairing. By running the car overhead, and the use of a re¬ 
movable furnace hood, is given uninterrupted access to the furnace, and 
in no way interferes with the charging or operation of the other fur¬ 
naces. 

The automatic charging doors are located in top of the hood, and, 
being counterbalanced, close automatically after the charge has passed 
through. The counterweight on these doors is adjustable, so that the 
charge may drop straight down into furnace, or be deflected toward the 
center. There are four of these doors, each being capable of inde¬ 
pendent adjustment. The charging car is built with four compart¬ 
ments, each door for which may be opened independently of each other. 
As the loaded car reaches top of any particular furnace, any one of 
the four, or all of the doors open automatically, and being counter- 
weighted close and latch themselves, and car is ready for reloading. 
This car also carries ore, fluxes or coke, and discharges upon feed 
floor on each side of furnace hood, for use of any hand-charging that 
mav be found necessary. For this purpose we provide two hinged 
doors on each side of hood; these doors swing inward and are held 
in position by the levers “M” while such charges are being shoveled 
into the furnace. In some cases it may be found advisable to charge 
all coke by hand when this is dropped down on feed floor and shoveled 
into furnace through the hand-charging doors. 

Any inequality of the automatic charging may be remedied by 
equalizing the charge through some hand feeding—exactly as is done 
in any furnace where the whole is hand-charging exclusively. 

( Continued on page 109) 


107 



108 


A—Automatic charging* car. B—Hoisting cable. C—Tail-rope cable. D—Removable 
steel furnace hood. E—Hand charging doors. F—Counterweight of automatic charging doors. 
G—Charge hopper over automatic charging doors. H—Furnace feed floor. I—Structural work 
carrying charge hoppers and track for car. J—Iron colmns to support “I.” K—Wheels to roll 
“D” from top of furnace. L—Incline tramway. M—Lever to operate hand charging doors. 








































































































































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

Y\ ith this system any number of furnaces, placed side by side, 
may be operated as well as one, two or more. 

The design shows an automatic charging car operated by a tail- 
rope system, the car being charged at the base of an incline tramway, 
hoisted up and hauled over to top of any particular furnace, and 
the empty car returned by the tail rope. 

W here a number of furnaces are to be so charged the capacity 
of the single charging car may not be sufficient, in which case two or 
more automatic cars may be employed, each being operated by an 
electric motor attached, making each car entirely independent of the 
other. In this case the incline is not used (unless it should be very 
gradual), but cars are run from bins or bedding floor on the same 
level as the overhead track above charging floors. 

The advantages of this system over the present automatic fur¬ 
nace-charging devices are, briefly stated, as follows: 

First :—Disposition of track for the automatic charging car by 
placing it above feed floor, shutting off one furnace for barring down 
and uninterrupted access to this furnace, just as though furnace were 
not there at all. 

Second :—The removable furnace hood, when rolled away from 
top of furnace, gives free access to top of furnace and opens up entire 
top of same on feed floor. 

Third :—The means of carrying furnace charges on feed floor 
without interruption of the automatic charging car passing on to the 
furnaces beyond. 

Fourth :—To do any hand charging that may be necessary irre¬ 
spective of the automatic charging system, thereby making it possi¬ 
ble to charge all coke in that manner if found advisable, or necessary 
to equalize furnace charges, and giving temporary access into furnace 
through the hand-charging doors. 

Disposition of Slag 

The disposition of molten slag at smelting plants is a matter of no 
inconsiderable importance in furnace practice. The longer the plants 
are in operation the larger grow the slag dumps, necessarily removing 
the dumping grounds further and further away from and less access¬ 
ible to the furnaces, rendering the handling of the slag by the ordinary 
hand slag-pot carts very inconvenient and laborious. 


109 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


The necessity for an improved and quicker method of disposing 
of slag from furnaces was brought to our attention in 1888 and we 
devised and patented a truck or car to run on a track, carrying two 
bowls, which at once proved an unqualified success and effectually 
solved the problem. We have since devised two other trucks based on 
the same principle, carrying one bowl each, but of much greater ca¬ 
pacity than the double bowl truck, to meet the varying conditions at 
the different smelters. In construction they are made of iron and steel 
throughout and are thoroughly strong and rigid to withstand the rough 
usage to which they are subjected. There are many of these trucks 
in use at the various smelting plants throughout the country. In 
some cases, as at the Arkansas Valley at Leadville, the Philadelphia 
at Pueblo, the Great National at Monterey, Mexico, the Copper Queen 
at Bisbee, the United Verde at Jerome, the Arizona Copper Co. at 
Clifton, and the Detroit at Morenci, Arizona, and others, they are 
drawn by locomotives; at others, they are drawn by mules and horses; 
while at other smelters they are handled by cable and stationary wind¬ 
ing engine, a wire rope running from the drum on the engine, out and 
around a sheave on the dump, thence back along the track to the 
furnaces. 



31 CU. FT. ELLIPTICAL BOWL SLAG-TRUCK, OPERATED BY AN ELECTRIC 
LOCOMOTIVE, AT THE WORKS OF THE UNITED VERDE 
COPPER CO., JEROME, ARIZ. 


110 










i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


W 05 


Slag Trucks 

Patented Double Bowl Slag Truck 



. 


Two views are herewith shown of our 15.6 cu. ft. capacity double 
bowl slag* truck. The gauge is 36 inches. Each bowl has a capacity 
of 7.8 cu. ft. and they are suspended or hung on trunnions near the 
center of gravity, in a frame which swings around horizontally on a 
pivot or standard placed in the center of the truck, allowing the bowls 
to he dumped of their contents over and away from the track. The 
length of the truck over all is 11 feet (with platform on one end) and 
is 5 feet wide. Hand brakes are furnished to control speed in going 
down hill. Approximate shipping weight is 5,700 pounds, height 3 
feet 6 inches. 



Ill 







i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — igo5 


Single Round-Bowl Slag Truck 



The success attending the introduction of our double bowl truck 
brought forth a demand for a truck of greater capacity, and the one 
shown in the accompanying cuts was designed to supply this want. It 
has a capacity of 35.16 cubic feet and measures 4 feet 7 inches from top 
of track to top of bowl. As the cuts show the style of the truck per¬ 
fectly, we will not go into a detailed description other than to explain 



l 


112 




















i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


the working. The bowl is suspended or hung on trunnion axles on 
which are keyed wheels that roll on a track placed transversely on the 
truck. A screw gear is also keyed to one of the trurinion axles of the 
bowl and a screw extending across the frame operated by a hand crank 
and fixed in boxes at its two ends, engages in the gear, revolves it and 
the bowd is thus rolled over on its wheels far enough to pour out all its 
contents over and beyond the track. It is fitted with platform and 
brake wheel on one or both ends for use on grades when necessary. 
The length of this truck over all is 13 feet and 6 inches, width 6 feet, 
weighs complete about 6,300 pounds. 


Round-Bowl Slag Truck 

Screw Dump, with Worm-Releasing Attachment (Fitts Patent). 



This engraving shows out 15 and 25 cubic feet slag truck, provided 
with our worm-releasing attachment, which is an entirely new and suc¬ 
cessful device. The object of this attachment is that when bowl is in 
discharging position, ready to be returned to its upright one, instead of 
screwing the bowl back by tne worm and gear, the former is disengaged 
from the latter, causing the bowl to roll back by reason of point of grav¬ 
ity being below center of bowl trunnions. Where a ti uck is in constant 
use, much time is saved by the use of this attachment. 

] 13 





i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


The bowl of this truck is carried in a heavy wrought-iron band 
with trunnions and held in place with keys. 

It may be applied to any of our various types of screw-dump slag 
trucks. This worm releasing attachment was patented Feb. 16, 1904. 


Single Elliptical-Bowl Slag Truck 



Some of the users of our double bowl slag truck require a truck 
of large capacity but not exceeding in height that of the double bowl 
truck. To meet this demand we have designed the truck herewith illus¬ 
trated. It consists essentially of a single elliptical shaped bowl sus¬ 
pended by trunnions on a pair of flanged wheels. These wheels traverse 
a track placed transversely of the truck, 17 inches each way from the 
center, and when in dumping position the bowl extends over and out¬ 
side of track rail 12 inches. 

The trunnions of the bowl are so placed with reference to the 
center of gravity, that when empty the bowl will drop back and stand 
right side up in position, ready for receiving slag. When loaded, the 
center of gravity is immediately above the center of the trunnions and 
the bowl can be easily dumped or rolled over by being given a slight 
push out of the center line of gravitation ; and when thus relieved of 
its contents it returns to its upright position by reason of the center 
of gravity now being below the center of trunnions. 

The principle of this improved device can be readily understood 
and appreciated by those interested in the important problem of slag 
disposition, where it is to be transported, in its liquid state to consid¬ 
erable distances from the furnaces; or where large amounts are to be 
handled economically. Moreover, the doubled capacity of this truck 
over the double bowl truck is important, the latter carrying 15.6 cubic 
feet for both bowls, while this one carries 31.7 cubic feet, or more than 
double the amount per load. 


114 


i860 Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— ! 9°5 



SINGLE ELLIPTICAL-BOWL SLAG TRUCK, SHOWING METHOD OF DUMPING. 

The height of this truck is 3 feet and 6 inches from top of rail 
to top of howl, but a trifle higher than the double-bowl truck; so that 
any of our customers now using the double-bowl truck and desirin 
to substitute our elliptical howl truck, and increase their trammin 
capacity, can do so without extra expense in the way of laying new 
track or lowering their present track in the truck-stations. Length 
of truck depends upon whether a platform is used at one or both ends. 
Approximate shipping weight. 7,500 pounds. 


We build ore-crushing plants for smelter sulphide mills 
guaranteeing- capacity from 30 tons and upwards per day, 
according to size of the plant. Our improved crushing 
machinery is fully described in a special catalogue, which 
will be sent upon application. 


fee bn 








i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — IQ05 

Semi-Elliptical-Bowl Slag Truck 

The two engravings below show our 44 cubic feet capacity semi¬ 
elliptical bowl slag truck, which operates and is built on precisely 
the same principle as the 31 cubic feet elliptical bowl truck just de¬ 
scribed. We furnish these with or without platforms at one or both 



SEMI-ELLIPTICAL-BOWL SLAG TRUCK. CAPACITY 44 CUBIC FEET. 

ends, and with brakes, or simply with draw heads and draw bars when 
the trucks are handled in trains. Height from top of track rail to top 
of bowl is 44 inches. Approximate shipping weight 8,500 pounds. 



SEMI-ELLIPTICAL-BOWL SLAG TRUCK, SHOWING METHOD OF DUMPING. 

116 



























i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

We also have patterns of a truck of the same style as that just 
described with an elliptical bowl of 60 cubic feet capacity; weight about 
9,700 pounds; 4 feet and 834 inches from top of track rail to top of 
bowl; 48-inch minimum gauge. 

We also build the elliptical and semi-elliptical bowl slag trucks 
with a screw dumping arrangement. By reason of their large capaci¬ 
ties and manner of dumping, which is gradual, they are a most desir¬ 
able apparatus for many cases. 



The above engraving illustrates our 44 cubic feet slag truck, ar¬ 
ranged for screw-dumping, used chiefly where slag-dump is to be 
formed or for discharging the molten slag slowly, and retaining shell, 
to be resmelted. 

We build them in three sizes, viz: 31 cubic feet capacity with 
elliptical bowl; 44 cubic feet capacity with semi-elliptical bowl; 60 
cubic feet capacity, with elliptical bowl. Minimum gauge 36 inches. 


We design and build complete smelting and converting 
plants of any desired capacity and solicit correspondence 
in regard to same. We make a specialty of building 
smelting furnaces and equipments for mule-back transpor¬ 
tation, and can erect a smelting plant wherever a mule 
can travel. 


117 












i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Special Slag Trucks 



The above engraving shows our 12 cubic feet capacity self-dump¬ 
ing and righting bowl slag truck of which we have built a large num¬ 
ber. It is constructed on the same principle as those just described. 

We will construct slag trucks to order in accordance with any 
design that may be submitted to us to meet any special conditions. 
We believe however that our designs and manufactures in this line are 
broad and of the best types and will serve their purposes in nearly all 
cases. Correspondence for any special equipment is however soli¬ 
cited. 


We will build to order any special machinery or equip¬ 
ment that may be needed in or about smelting plants, and 
in this connection we might also state that we are conlined 
to 110 special forms of smelting furnaces, and are always 
pleased to have plans and suggestions from practical metal¬ 
lurgists in charge of smelting plants submitted to us. 


118 




i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


- T 9°5 



THIS ENGRAVING SHOWS A TRAIN OF SLAG TRUCKS 

CAPACITY EACH. 


OF 12 CUBIC FEET 


We build ore-reduction machinery for all the modern 
processes, including 1 cyanide plants, concentration mills, 
chlorination plants, stamp amalgamation mills, etc. Our 
machinery is the best in quality, the highest in efficiency 
and the greatest in capacity of any made. Send for our 
illustrated descriptive literature as given on page 153 of 
this book. 


119 





i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Ball-Bearing Turntables 



The above outline drawing' shows a heavy, cast-iron, ball-bearing 
turntable for use in turning slag trucks or other heavy loads. The top 
plate is well ribbed, and the ball race in both top and bottom plates are 
turned out, using finished and hardened steel balls making an easily 
operated turntable. If preferred these tables can be cast with rails 
on upper face in order to avoid wheels riding upon their flanges when 
passing over turntable. 

We can furnish them for any gauge of track or wheel-base centers 
desired. 


Copper Moulds 



This engraving shows our mould for either matte or black copper, 

mounted on wheels like a slag cart. The bowls are made of best grade 

of iron, and very heavv. 

-- 


120 




















































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


We also have patterns for shallow matte moulds, with hat bottom, 
to permit breaking up the matte for sacking or re-crushing. 

We have a large assortment of patterns for lead, copper and 
copper matte moulds. They are usually lettered with name of com¬ 
pany in bottom. 

Matte Moulds 



We show in the above engraving our mounted ribbed matte mould. 
We have had much experience in the use of properly designed moulds 
for copper matte and while we have many patterns of different forms, 
we have found the one illustrated above to be very satisfactory and in 
favor with furnacemen, a plain hand slag cart is used but thoroughly 
ribbed on outside as the cut shows. 


Slag Carts 



This engraving shows the general style of the standard hand slag 
cart used at many of the large smelters. We make a number of styles 


121 







i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

of bowls varying in capacity, some of which we show in cuts on follow¬ 
ing* page. They are of cast-iron of the same grade and quality as our 
standard cast-iron water jackets. The cart frame and wheels are prac¬ 
tically the same for all, the only difference being in size. The capac¬ 
ities and weights of these bowls are given under the cuts. If preferred, 
any of these carts can be fitted with roller bearings. 


Matte Carts 


We show herewith a cut of our matte cart. It is for placing 
under the slag spout of a furnace to receive the slag which overflows 
into the ordinary slag cart, allowing the matte to settle in the matte 
bowl. The matte carts are removed when full and the matte allowed 
to cool, when it is removed and conveyed to furnace feed floor for re¬ 
smelting, or crushed for roasting before resmelting. The principle 
is the same as the forehearth but in a more portable form. They are 
mounted on wheels and ironed up same as slag carts. These are 
generally used at lead furnaces where the percentage of matte runs 
low. This cart can also be fitted with roller bearings if preferred. 
The usual size of the bowl is 36 in. internal diameter at top, and 21 y 2 



in. deep at center. These carts are made of our best mixture of cast 
iron as used in our water jackets. 

We have pattern of a ribbed matte bowl, the ribs extending radi¬ 
ally from the conical bottom outside to the rib around top of bowl, 
which has been found to be more durable than the plain bowls. 


122 



i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Slag Bowls 





































































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Matte Settling and Separating 



The cut here shown, illustrates an equipment for settling and sepa¬ 
rating matte from slag, and consists essentially of a series of settling 
pots with suitable pits in the ground to accommodate them, with their 
tops at a general level with the surface in order that they may be 
conveniently filled with fluid slag. After standing a sufficient length 
of time to allow the slag and matte to separate, the matte, by reason 
of its greater specific gravity, goes to the bottom; the pot is raised 
out of the pit, the slag tapped off by a tap hole in the side of the pot 
and then the matte tapped off at the bottom and finally the pot dumped 
to discharge the skull or shell of matte which has chilled all over the 
inner surface of the pot. The foregoing is in substance the idea given 
ns by the Omaha & Grant Smelting and Refining Co. as to their re¬ 
quirements at their Denver plant, with instruction to work out the 
necessary mechanical details and build the plant, which was done 
accordingly, years ago. 

To fulfill the requirements, an overhead tramway was erected over 
a line of pits in connection with suitable traverse and hoisting machin¬ 
ery, adapted for transferring the settling pots to any point along the 
line, lowering away into the pits when empty, hoisting them out when 
full and transferring them to a convenient point for tapping the slag 


124 















i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

from them into slag trucks for conveyance over the dump. After 
the slag is thus tapped off from the settling pot the latter is transferred 
along the line to some convenient point where the matte is tapped off 
into suitable molds, from a tap hole near the bottom. The settling pot 
is then dumped by the machinery at any convenient point on the line, 
depositing the shell of chilled matte on the ground. The pot is then 



hoisted away, transferred to a point over any pit and lowered into it to 
be filled again with fluid slag. And so with all the settling pots in the 

system. 

The hoisting and traverse machinery and the overhead tramway 
with its equipment of trolleys, ropes, pulleys, sheaves, etc., are of a 
system such as we have had in successful use for some twenty years 
at our works for hoisting and transferring heavy machinery, and it is 
well adapted for the service of handling settling pots in such a system 

as that above described. 


125 























































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

The system as described and illustrated has been in use with satis¬ 
factory results at the Denver works of the Omaha & Grant Smelting 
and Refining Co. since the summer of 1893, until the Grant plant went 
out of commission. 

To more clearly show the construction of this tramway and ar¬ 
rangement of settling bowls, we illustrate on preceding page an end 
view of same. 


Dumping Cars and Incline Hoists 

We manufacture dumping cars of all kinds and for any kind of 
service. We show cuts following, and give description of several styles 
for use at smelting plants. 


Automatic Dumping Car 



This engraving shows an automatic dumping car for an inclined 
tramway. It is strongly built for carrying matte and slag settlings from 
furnace floor to feed floor. It is made of wrought and Norway iron 
throughout, except the wheels and boxes, and in several sizes to meet 
different requirements. 


126 


i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


190 .S 


Bottom Dumping Car 




p o O' 



This car dumps from the bottom and through the track, and is 
especially designed for feeding - reverberatory and revolving furnaces, 
and for carrying crushed ore from sulphide mill to roaster beds. The 
body is made of sheet steel, the levers of wrought and the wheels of 
cast iron. We make them of any size required. 


Side-Roll Dump Cars 



We show in the above engraving a side dumping car for carrying 
ore, fluxes, fuel, etc., to feed floor of furnace. A flange wheel is fitted on 


127 

















i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

each end of car body, being supported by, and rolling on, a track placed 
transversely of the truck, allowing it to be dumped on either side, and 
is very easily operated. It is fitted with brakes for controlling it on 
grades and may be provided with platform on one end for man to 
stand on. 

These Cars run from 20 to 100 cubic feet capacity each, gauge 
of track from 24 to 48 inches. 

This type is a very convenient form in charging blast furnaces. 

Where a large tonnage is to be carried, the cars are usually run 
in trains and drawn by a steam or electric locomotive. 



We show herewith another car for carrying ore flux and fuel, 
which also dumps from the side. The side of this car is hinged at the 
top and fastened with a latch at the bottom, and by raising the latch 
the contents of the car is dumped automatically by reason of the bot¬ 
tom being inclined. We make these cars of any desired size and to 
dump on one or both sides. This cut shows the single side dump. 


Standard Square and Scoop-Body Cars 

We build all forms of square and scoop-body ore cars for use 
about a mill, mine or smelter. These are made from 10 to 22 cubic 
feet capacity. They are thoroughly substantial, well braced. A 
false bottom is provided for the square body to take the wear of the 
ore. They dump in any direction desired. 


128 





























































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Belt-Driven Hoists 



This is a simple and very efficient double paper-friction hoister, 
in use at the largest lead smelters for operating the automatic incline 
dump car shown on page 126. There is nothing better for purposes 
of this kind. 


We also build a belt-driven hoist with single paper-frictions, as 
shown below, which is cheaper and has less capacity than the one above 
described and illustrated. 



129 






i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Lift Elevators 



I11 some smelting plants for 
either copper or lead ores, plat¬ 
form elevators are employed for 
returning foul slag or matte 
from furnace to feed door. 

Besides the automatic dump 
car system for this purpose, 
shown on pages 108-9, we fur¬ 
nish these lift elevators of any 
desired capacity, either with sin¬ 
gle or double platforms. Run 
either by power or the hydraulic 
plunger system. 


Automatic Furnace Charging Car 



The above engraving illustrates a four-compartment car, used in 
connection with the automatic furnace charging system shown and 
described on pages 108-9. 


130 

















i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Each compartment is provided with a hinged drop door, making 
each compartment entirely distinct from the other. Car has two trip 
levers on each end, which, when striking against projections on top 
of furnace hood, open any one or all four of the drop doors automati¬ 
cally. As soon as car has been discharged of contents, the doors close 
automatically, thereby making the entire operation automatic. 

The above engraving represents a car of 100 cubic feet, and is 
thoroughly braced throughout. 


Sampling Works 



The above outline drawing shows side elevation of an automatic 
sampling works for crushing and sampling custom gold ores. Ore 
is taken from cars and shoveled into crusher, and after passing through 
same, is elevated up to first automatic sampling machine which removes 
one-fifth of the bulk as a sample, the rejected ore being elevated up to 
a swivel spout which discharges it into any one of the bins on second 
floor, where it can be held, if necessary, for settlement, aftei which it is 
trammed over to the general ore bins. The sample from the first samp¬ 
ling machine drops down to a jaw crusher, thence to i () ll feeder and 

131 













































































































































































i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

crushing rolls. From these rolls it drops down to a second automatic 
sampling machine, from which one-tenth is removed as a final sample, 
the reject elevated up to the second elevator and to the rejected ore 
bins on second floor. The final sample drops down to the set of samp¬ 
ling rolls, thence to the coning floor. In order to make the plant en¬ 
tirely automatic throughout from the time it is fed into crusher until 
final sample lies on coning floor, a bucket elevator is used to elevate this 
sample from the sampling rolls up to a hopper bin over coning floor 
and dropped down on said floor as required. 

The above describes a typical crushing and sampling mill for cus¬ 
tom gold ores, the main feature being the necessity of recrushing and 
thoroughly mixing the sample each time as it comes from a sampling 
machine. This method is absolutely necessary in order to obtain an 
accurate sample on gold ores, especially so for custom work. 

In sampling copper ores containing little or no gold or silver val¬ 
ues, such elaborate sampling machinery is not necessary. 

For automatic sampling machines we can furnish the Vezin, the 
Boulder or the Pipe Sampler, regarding any of which special informa¬ 
tion will be gladly given at any time. For machinery required in 
connection with sampling or sulphide crushing mills, write for our lit¬ 
erature descriptive of same. 

Sulphide Mills 

For crushing sulphide ores preparatory to roasting, some simple 
form of crushers and rolls is all that is necessary, usually consisting 
of a rock breaker, crushing rolls, bucket-elevator and sizing screen. 

Roasting Furnaces 

A necessary adjunct of a silver-lead smelting plant is the roast¬ 
ing furnace for roasting the ore preparatory to smelting. The large 
size Bruckner and the hand reverberatory, in the various sizes, which 
we illustrate and give description in these pages, are more or less in 
use at the lead smelters. With the iron work for any of these furnaces 
we furnish drawings of the whole furnace complete, with the necessary 
instructions for building and setting them up, or we erect them com¬ 
plete, as desired. 


132 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Bruckner Roasting Cylinder 



The Bruckner roasting cylinder is probably the most popular of 
all revolving roasters for lead smelter practice. They are made in 
sizes to suit requirements, the standard being 6x12 feet, 7x16 feet, 
854x18 feet and 834x2634 feet. The twelve-foot cylinders have but 
two openings, one for feeding and one for discharging, opposite each 
other. The larger sizes have four openings. The cylinders are re¬ 
volved by gearing. The capacity per charge of these clinders is: 
6 xt 2, 3 to 4 tons; 7x12, 5 to 6 tons; 7x16, 6 to 7 tons; 834x18, 13 to 17 
tons; the 834x2634, 20 to 25 tons, while the capacity per day depends 
on the percentage of sulphur the ore to be roasted contains, and per¬ 
centage retained in the ore. The time varies form three to forty-eight 
hours, depending on conditions of ore and proportion of sulphur elim¬ 
inated. 

The fire boxes are made in two ways, movable and stationary, the 
movable one being on wheels and running up to the cylinder on a 
track. Charging hoppers not shown in cut are furnished with these 
roasters and hold one charge, double hoppers being used for large sizes. 

The engraving shown herewith is of our 8^x2634 feet Bruckner 
roaster, of which we have built many for lead smelters. This 
size cylinder is preferably driven by spur and worm gearing, so as to 
revolve the cylinder not to exceed one revolution in forty minutes, in 
order to expose as much of the ore contents, gradually, as possible, 


133 



i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

and avoid violent agitation of the ore which would create much flue dust. 
These large Bruckner roasters are usually furnished with coal hoppers 
suspended above the fire boxes, which are generally of the stationary 
type. The Oxland and White-Howell revolving roasters are com¬ 
paratively little used in connection with smelting. 

Reverberatory Roasting Furnace 

(See Illustration on following page.) 

We show herewith a hand reverberatory roasting furnace with 
fusion compartment. The central portion of the roasting chamber is 
shown as broken away, showing the construction, and interior where 
the ore is roasted. The ore is afterwards fused in the fusing com¬ 
partment on the end to the right as shown in cut. Where ores require 
roasting only, before being smelted, the fusion compartment is left off. 
The roasting compartment is the same in either case. This style of 
roasting furnace is a standard and is in use at nearly every smelter in 
America. The usual size is 16x60 feet hearth area, but conditions very 
often change this. We have recently built some with an 8o-foot hearth, 
with rabbling doors spaced closer together. As custom smelters more 
particularly have to contend with considerable “fines,” the roasted ores 
are slightly agglomerated by raking all calcines from the hearth of 
furnace into large hand pots and tamped down, which makes quite a 
satisfactory substitute for machine-briquetting. We have complete 
drawings of the latest types of reverberatory roasting furnaces now in 
use at the large Western lead smelters and will be glad to correspond 
with parties interested in this subject. 


Every furnace and piece of machinery shown in this 
book has been built by us and has given perfect satisfac¬ 
tion in operation. We study carefully the needs of each 
proposition as it is received by us and build the furnace 
and equipments accordingly—hence each of our furnaces 
gives absolutely the greatest satisfaction as to efficiency 
and economy. If you are contemplating building a smelt¬ 
ing plant write us fully. We are quite sure that we can 
serve your interests to the very best advantage. 


134 



Reverberatory Roasting Furnace with Fuse Box 



135 


FOR DESCRIPTION SEE PRECEDING PAGE. 







































































































































































































































































The Gross Automatic and Mechanically-Stirred Ore-Roasting Furnace 



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130 
























































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

constantly. One of the main difficulties encountered in mechanically- 
stirred roasters in custom smelters, is the lack of flexibility of manip¬ 
ulations to accommodate various grades of ores or mixtures. 

The object of designing the Gross automatic and mechanically- 
stirred roasting furnace has been for the purpose of accomplishing this 
desideratum, to-wit: to desulphurize the great variety of ores now be¬ 
ing roasted in the hand reverberatory furnace. In an automatic and 
mechanically-stirred roaster, this demands flexibility of manipulations 
as in the hand roaster. 

Lack of space necessitates but a brief description of our machine, 
and further information will be gladly given to those interested. 

The circular hearth is carried upon I-beams and car wheels, re¬ 
volving on a circular track. The stirring and discharging device re¬ 
main stationary, all stirring, rabbling and discharging being carried 
on in a compartment in which the ore may be stirred as violently as 
desired with practically no loss of dust; furthermore, the device has 
perfect protection from the heat of fire boxes. The stirring device 
being stationary, no chains are required to drag the rabbles over the 
hearth, nor danger of rabbles catching and breaking chains. 

In the Gross automatic and mechanically-stirred roasting furnace, 
ore may be retained on the hearth as long as necessary, the furnace 
not being a continuous discharge, makes it a most desirable machine 
where different ores require more or less time to accomplish certain 
work. All stirring and rabbling being carried on in the compartment 
above alluded to, the ore as it passes through the fire and draught re¬ 
mains perfectly quiet, hence we claim a smaller amount of loss in dust 
than any other hearth roaster on the market. 

The stirring and discharging device being in combination, the one 
set of rabbles discharge the roasted ore from the hearth whenever de¬ 
sired. By a simple attachment, the stirring device can be adjusted at a 
moment’s notice so as to leave a given surface of ore exposed to the 
heat any length of time desired. In stirring continuously, ore surfaces 
are stirred every two minutes, more or less, the speed of hearth and 
motors driving same being regulated by a speed-controlling rheostat. 

By reason of its unusual flexibility of manipulations, not enjoyed 
by any of the present ore-roasting furnaces, places the Gross auto¬ 
matic and mechanically-stirred ore roasting furnace in the ranks of 
recent important improvements in metallurgical devices. 


137 






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138 
























































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

Blowing machines are a line of manufactures by themselves and 
we do not make them. Where the matter is left to our judgment we 
recommend the Connersville cycloidal blower for smelter use, as we 
consider it the best rotary pressure blower in use at this time, and have 
never known a case where the Connersville blower has failed to sfive 
entire satisfaction. ()ne type of this blower is shown in cut on preced¬ 
ing page. 


Scales 


\\ e furnish scales for all purposes in ore treatment and of any 
size and capacity. They comprise: furnace-charging scales, wheel-bar¬ 
row scales, portable platform scales, wagon scales, railroad track scales, 
etc., etc. 


Tanks 


We carry in stock a large line of wooden tanks of all standard 
sizes, capacities ranging from 800 to 9,000 gallons. They are made 
from selected pine, free from sap, shakes, wormholes, and unsound 
knots that would cause leaks. 


Steel Tanks 


Steel tanks are not kept in stock but we make them to order on 
short notice of any size or style desired. The small sizes are usually 
set up complete before shipment; the large sizes that cannot be loaded 
on cars are knocked down and all necessary rivets, etc., furnished for 
erecting at destination. Prices furnished on receipt of specifications. 


139 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Copper Converters 



The above engraving shows our latest design of trough converter 
for copper matte, being eight feet in diameter by eleven feet long. 

We desire to draw special attention to the compactness and rigidity 
of the stand construction. The entire operating mechanism is self- 
contained, the hydraulic cylinder and the cylinder controlling valve be¬ 
ing carried by one of the sole plates. The controlling valve is operated 


140 











i86o—C olorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

by a large hand wheel with a toothed quadrant to which is connected 
the valve stem, thereby making the range of movement of converter 
shell under absolute control of the operator. The thrust of gear on 
end of cylinder is divided uniformly between two guide rollers at top 
of the guide roller stand. To lower end of the two diagonal brace 
bars is provided an eccentric with which the vertical rack can readily 
be thrown in and out of gear. The roller-wheel boxes are adjustable 
by means of steel wedges. Where details of converter construction 
are left to us, we build them of the best materials and in a most thor¬ 
ough manner throughout, as it is a machine subjected to very severe 
duty and should be built accordingly. 

We build all machinery required in converter plants except blow¬ 
ing engines, for which we recommend those built by the Nordberg Man¬ 
ufacturing Co., Milwaukee, Wis. 

Copper Converting Plants 

The outline drawing on the following page represents end view of 
customary arrangement for copper converting plants, one or more blast 
furnaces being placed in a row on the same level, with their respec¬ 
tive forehearths, from which the molten matte is drawn through a 
trough into a ladle or bench below. The ladle when filled is carried 
to and discharged into the converter by the overhead traveling crane, 
and the matte “blown” into blister copper. 

Converter slags, always carrying more or less metallic copper are 
poured into one of the ladles and discharged into one of the furnace 
forehearths. At one end of the converter building ample room is re¬ 
tained for relining converter shells, drying out, and for the silica mill 
which prepares the siliceous lining. The more recent plants use hy¬ 
draulically operated mold-carriage movers for handling them mechan¬ 
ically when pouring off the copper. 

The steel flue from converter dust collectors is shown connecting 
with main blast furnace flue above feed floor. The nose piece, or dust 
collector into which the converter “blows,” is hinged to the body and 
thrown back into same when replacing a shell. 

As no two plants are ever exactly alike metallurgists preferring 
some other arrangement than as here shown will be gladly complied 
with, as this outline drawing simply shows the usual construc¬ 
tion. Limited space prevents an article on the chemistry of the 
conversion of copper mattes, but this information can 1 eadily 


141 



i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


be obtained from the technical treatises on this subject. We 
are prepared to contract for the complete installation of converter 
plants, and with sufficient data given will be pleased to estimate on 
complete converter plants of any desired capacity. 


142 
































































































































r86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— I 9°5 


Cupelling Furnaces 



Above illustrates our standard form of single English cupelling 
furnace. The double furnace is an exact duplicate of this, one being 
right and the other left hand, the stack located in the middle between 
the two. 

W here the corrosive action on the cupel is unusually severe, we 
furnish a water jacketed test made of steel plate with welded joints. 

We have designs of and can furnish complete refining plants for 
both copper and lead. 


Dust-Chamber Doors and Stacks 

Where a brick or stone dust chamber is used for blast furnace 
plants, we provide dust chamber doors made either with removable 
sheet-iron doors held in place with a wooden or iron bar, or else to slide 
in grooved iron guides. 

Sheet-steel dust chamber stacks in any size required. 


143 









































































































































































































































































































































































































































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Some of Our Smelter Customers 
and Furnaces Built by Us 

Omaha & Grant Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Globe Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 

Pueblo Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 

Colorado Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Philadelphia Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 
Arkansas Valley Smelting Works, Colorado. 

Bi-Metallic Smelting Company, Colorado. 

New York Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Silverton Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Consolidated Kansas City Smelting and Refining Co., Kansas. 

El Paso Smelting Works, Texas. 

Great Central Mexican Smelting Company, Mexico. 

Great National Mexican Smelting Company, Mexico. 

Hanauer Smelting Company, Utah. 

Germania Smelting Company, Utah. 

United Smelting and Refining Company, Montana. 

Butte and Ruby Valley Smelting Company, Montana. 

Canadian Smelting Works, Canada. 

Mountain Copper Company, California. 

United Globe Mines Smelter, Arizona. 

Val Verde Copper Company, Arizona. 

Pennsylvania Smelter, Utah. 

Buena Vista Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 

Tomichi Valley Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Montana Ore Purchasing Company, Montana. 

Tasmanian Smelting Company, Island of Tasmania. 

The Smelting Corporation, England. 

Ned-Ind. Mijnbowo Maats, Island of Java. 

Usine de Desargentation, Belgium, Europe. 

Copperfield Mines, Vermont. 

Selby Smelting and Lead Company, California. 

Grand Prize Copper Company, Arizona. 

Copper Crown Mining Company, Nova Scotia. 

Kendrick and Gelder Smelting Company, Colorado. 


144 


i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

Rocky Mountain Smelting Company, Colorado. 

Clear Creek Mining and Reduction Company, Colorado. 
Robinson Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company, Colorado. 
Ohio and Colorado Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 
Republic Smelting and Refining Company, Colorado. 

Fraser Mountain Copper Company, New Mexico. 

Mazapil Copper Company, Ltd., Mexico. 

The Dakota-Calumet Company, South Dakota. 

Compagnie Metaux-Produits Chimiques d'Overpelt, Belgium. 
Majestic Copper Mining and Smelting Company, Utah. 

New York and Nevada Copper Company, Nevada. 

Cataract Copper Mining Company, Montana. 

Teziutlan Copper Company, Mexico. 

Compania Metalurgica Mexicana, Mexico. 

Negociacion de Lomo de Toros, Mexico. 

Fundicion Veramexicana, Mexico. 

Jose M. Ortiz, Mexico. 

Keystone Copper Smelter Company, Mexico. 

The Ladd Metals Company, Oregon. 

Bully Hill Copper Mining and Smelting Company, California. 
Coahuila Mining and Smelting Company, Mexico. 

Australian Metal Company, Australia. 

White Knob Copper Company, Idaho. 

Compania Minera de Penoles, Mexico. 

St. Joseph Lead Company, Missouri. 

Greyhound Mining and Milling Company, Idaho. 

Bradshaw Mountain C. M. and S. Company, Arizona. 

East Pittsburg Gas Works, Pennsylvania. 

Lost Packer Mining Company, Idaho. 

The Mowry Mines Company, Arizona. 

The Giroux Consolidated Mines Company, Nevada. 

Compagnie Francaise des Mines du Laurium, Greece. 

National Metallurgical Company, Mexico. 

The Cooke City Smelters, Montana. 

El Cobre Company, Cuba. 

And any number of small concerns. 

Note: Many of the above plants are now in the combina¬ 
tion known as the American Smelting and Refining Company. 


145 


i86o —Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


List of Tools and Supplies for Two-Stack 
- - Smelter^ — 


PIPE TOOLS 

For Pipe 34 inch to 4 inches inclusive 


i No. C Screw Plate with solid 
dies; threads pipe 54 m - i 1 ^ n - 
1 No. E Screw Plate with solid 
dies; threads pipe 134 in. to 2 in. 
1 No. 5 Hart’s Adjustable Duplex 
Die Stock; cuts and threads pipe 
2]/ 2 in. to 4 in. inclusive. 

1 No. 1 Stanwood Pipe Cutter; 

cuts pipe 54 in. to 54 in. 

1 No. 2 Barnes Pipe Cutter; cuts 
pipe 54 in. to 2 in. 


1 14-in. Stillson’s Pipe Wrench for 
pipe 54 in. to 154 in. 

1 24-in. Stillson’s Pipe Wrench for 
pipe 54 in. to 254 in. 

1 No. 3 Brock’s patent Chain 
Tong's for pipe 54 in. to 4 in. 

1 No. 8854 Parker's Combination 
Pipe Vise for pipe 54 in. to 4 in. 

1 each, Pipe Tap and Reamer, 54 
in., 24 in., 1 in. and 154 in. 

1 Ball Pein Hammer with handle. 


MACHINISTS’ TOOLS 


i Speed Indicator. 

1 Coe’s genuine Wrench, 10 in. 

1 Coe’s genuine Wrench, 15 in. 

1 Coe’s genuine Wrench, 21 in. 

1 12-in. Hack Saw Frame. 

1 Dozen 12-in. Blades for same. 

54 Dozen each 12-in. and 14-in. 
Mill Files. 

54 Dozen each 12-in. and 14-in. 
Bastard Files. 

54 Dozen each 10-in. and 12-in. 

Half-round Bastard Files. 

54 Dozen 12-in. Round Bastard 
Files. 


54 Dozen 12-in. Square Bastard 
Files. 

1 Dozen each 6-in. and 8-in. Taper 
Files. 

1 Dozen assorted File Handles. 

1 Ball Pein Hammer with Handle. 
1 Pair 10-in. Dividers. 

1 Pair 6-in. Double Calipers. 

1 Pair 6-in. Combination Pliers 
and Wire Cutters. 

1 Combination Belt Punch. 

1 Hand Cold Chisel. 

1 15-in. Combination Wrench. 

1 12-in. Half-round Wood Rasp. 

1 Lace Leather Cutter. 


BLACKSMITHS’ TOOLS 


1 Hart’s patent Duplex Die Stock 
“B” for bolts; cutting thread and 
tapping nuts to 1 in. Five sets 
dies and ten taps. 


1 Hand Post Drill, drilling to i-in. 

hole and 15-in. center. 

1 Set (of seven) Twist Drills for 
same. 


146 












i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


BLACKSMITHS’ TOOLS-Continued 


1 12-in. Sleeve Ratchet Drill. 

1 Set (of five) Drills for same. 

1 Steel Square. 

1 Pair 4-in. Snips. 

1 No. 65 Solid Box Vise. 

1 85-lb. P. W. Anvil. 

1 Swage Block. 

3 Assorted Round Punches. 

1 Set Heading Tools, 54 in., Y in., 
in., Y in. and 1 in. 

1 No. 3 Blacksmith’s Hand Ham¬ 
mer with handle. 

1 No. 1 Riveting Hammer with 
handle. 

1 Steel Sledge, 10 lbs. 

1 Steel Sledge, 8 lbs. 


1 Steel Sledge, 6 lbs. 

1 Each 2-in. and 3-in. Flatter. 

6 Each assorted Top and Bottom 
Swages. 

6 Each assorted Top and Bottom 
Fullers. 

6 Pairs assorted Tongs. 

1 Each Set Hammer iRj in., i )4 
in. and 2 in. 

1 Each 2-in. Hot and Cold Cutters. 
3 Assorted Hardies. 

1 38-in. standard Hand Bellows. 

1 Tuyere Iron. 

2 Dozen Handles for Sledges. 

14 Dozen Hammer Handles. 


CARPENTERS’ TOOLS 


2 2-ft. Brass-Bound Rules. 

1 Screw Driver, 20-in. Champion. 

1 Smooth Plane, No. 3 Iron. 

1 Jack Plane, No. 5 Iron. 

1 Jointer Plane, No. 8 Iron. 

1 No. 2 Claw Hatchet. 

1 No. 11 Maydole Claw Hammer. 

1 Steel Square. 

1 Try Square No. 20. 

1 T Bevel Square. 

1 Drawing Knife, 10-in. 

1 Asses' Skin Tape Line, 100 ft. 

1 Barber’s Ratchet Brace, 10-in. 
Sweep. 

1 Each Socket Framing Chisels, Jq 
in., 1 in., 1^4 in. and 2 in. 

2 Sets Handles for same (four per 
set). 

1 5^4 in. x 3 l 4 in. round Lignum- 
Vitae Mallet. 

1 Each of 13-16 in., 15-16 in., and 
1 1-16 in. Ship Augers. 

147 


1 Set of Bits, J 4 in- to 1 in. (Jen¬ 
nings). 

1 Screw Driver Bit. 

1 Nail Set. 

1 Rosehead Countersink. 

1 Spirit Level. 

1 Pair Dividers, 10 in. 

1 Pair Calipers, 10 in. 

1 Mounted Oil Stone. 

1 Each Y in., 1 in- anc l ll A in. 
Gouges. 

1 No. 7 Disston & Sons’ Hand 
Crosscut Saw. 

1 No. 7 Disston & Sons’ Rip Saw. 
1 One-man Cross-Cut Saw, 4 ft. 

1 Brass Plumb Bob. 

1 Chalk Line, 100 ft. 

1 Box Chalk. 

1 Dozen Carpenters' Pencils. 

1 Flat Head Countersink. 

1 Scratch Awl. 

1 Bench Screw, i% in. iron. 







i860 — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

CARPENTERS’ TOOLS—Continued 


1 Solid Punch. 

1 Center Punch. 
1 Prick Punch. 

1 Saw Set. 


1 Adjustable Level. 

2 Oil Slips. 

1 Spoke Shave. 


MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLIES 


1 Babbitt-Melting Ladle. 

50 Pounds genuine Babbitt Metal. 

3 Quires assorted Emery Paper. 

3 Quires assorted Sand Paper. 

2 Jack Screws, 2-in. x 12-in. 

1 Two-ton Differential Chain 
Block. 

1 Three-Sheave Hartz Steel Block 
for 1-inch rope. 

1 Two-Sheave Hartz Steel Block 
for 1-in. rope. 

1 One-Sheave Hartz Steel Block 
for 1-in. rope. 

1 “Star’’ Snatch Block. 

300 Feet 1-in. Manila Rope. 

50 Assorted Cap Screws. 

50 Assorted Set Screws. 

6 Bars each of y 2 in., y in., in., 
Y%- in. and i-in. Round Iron, 16 
feet long. 

2 Bars each of iJ/$ in., ipj in., iy 2 
in. Round Iron, 16 feet long. 

12 Bars highest grade Octagon 
Steel, assorted y in., in., 1 in., 
ips in. (3 each 12 feet). 

1000 Pounds Steel Furnace Bars. 

1 Bullion Sampling Punch. 

6 Gauge Glasses for boiler. 

1 Side Rawhide Lace Leather. 

1 No. 2 Mounted Grindstone. 

1 Boiler Flue Cleaner with Han¬ 
dle. 

1 Coal Shovel. 


1 Hoe with Handle, for furnace. 
1 Poker with Handle, for furnace. 
1 Mason’s Trowel. 

1 Set (of six pieces) Brass Draper 
Oilers. 

3 Zinc Oilers. 

1 One-gallon Oil Can. 

2 Dozen long-handle, square-point 
Shovels. 

1 Dozen D-handle, square-point 
Shovels. 

2 Scoop Shovels, square point. 

6 D-handle, 14-tine Charcoal or 
Coke Forks. 

6 No. 3 Mill Lamps, with 10-in. 
reflector. 

1 No. 3 Globe Hanging Lamp. 

6 Common Tubular Lanterns. 

6 Dozen assorted wicks for above. 

1 Dozen assorted Globes for above. 
12 Jackson’s Steel Wheelbarrows. 
200 feet i-in. 3-ply Hose, coupled, 

and with nozzles. 

200 ft. 2-in. Mill Hose, coupled, 
and with nozzles. 

2 Each 6-lb., 8-lb. and 10-lb. Steel 
Sledges. 

2 Dozen Handles for same. 

1 Single-Bit Axe with handle. 

200 pounds assorted cast-iron 
Washers. 

50 Pounds assorted wrought iron 
Washers. 


148 








i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

MISCELLANEOUS SUPPLIES—Continued 


Lbs. Blank 

Nuts, 


in. 

(square.) 

Lbs. Blank 

Nuts, 

n 

in. 

(square). 

Lbs. Blank 

Nuts, 

7 A 

in. 

(square). 

Lbs. Blank 

Nuts, 

1 

in. 


(square). 

100 Lbs. assorted Head and Nut 


Bolt Ends, 1 Cs in., 134 in., 
in. 

50 Assorted Lag Screws. 

5 Lbs. “Eclipse” Boiler Gaskets. 

5 Lbs. “Perfection” Packing. 

10 Lbs. Flax Packing. 

25 Lbs. Sheet Rubber Packing. 

10 Lbs. Italian Hemp Packing. 

100 Lbs. best white Machine 
Waste. 

2 Lbs. assorted No. 8 Copper Riv¬ 
ets and Burrs. 

2 Sheets 36-in. x 120-in. No. 10 
and No. 16 Steel (one each). 

I Case (10 gallons) Engine Oil. 

1 Case (10 gallons) Cylinder Oil. 

1 Case (10 gallons) Machine Oil. 

1 Barrel (50 gallons) Coal Oil. 

50 Lbs. Lubricating Grease. 

2 Lbs. Wicking. 


1 Keg dry Red Lead, 10 lbs. 

1 Keg White Lead in oil, 25 lbs. 

40 Feet 3G-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

40 Feet 3^-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

50 Feet 1-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

50 Feet ipj-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

100 Feet 134-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

80 Feet 2-in. Black Iron Pipe. 

6 Ells each 34-in., ^-in., i-in., 134 
in., 134-in. and 2-in. 

6 Tees each 34-1°*, 1 -in., 

i34-in., i34-in. and 2-in. 

3 Plugs each 34-in., Y~i n -> i-in., 
134-in., 134-in. and 2-in. 

2 Unions each 34-in., i-in., 

134-in., 134-in. and 2-in. 

2 Each assorted Bushings from 34“ 
in. to 2-in (40 all told). 

3 Each Globe Valves 34-in., 
i-in., 134-in., i34-in. and 2-in. 

6 Nipples each, assorted, 34-in., 34- 
in., i-in., i34-in., i34-in. and 2- 
in. 

3 Pipe Sleeves, assorted, each 34- 
in., 34-irL I "in., i34-i n -> i/4-in. 
and 2-in. 

2 Caps, assorted, each 34-in., Y~ 
i-in., i34-in., i34-in. and 2-in. 

6 Smelter Brooms. 


Remarks: Under above head of “Miscellaneous” could come: 
Wagon or Track Scales. Track Irons. Bullion Ladles. Fire Clay. 
Wheelbarrows. Fire Brick. Bullion Cars. Etc., etc. 


149 






i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


List of Supplies for Assay Outfit 


i Ainsworth Button Balance. 

1 Ainsworth Pulp Balance. 

1 Set Gramme Weights, 50 
grammes to i-to milligramme. 

1 Set Assay Ton Weights, 1 assay 
ton to 1-20 assay ton. 

1 Double Assay Furnace, iron 
work complete, special tiling, 
grate bars, doors, binding bars, 
etc. 

12 Muffles, 9-in. x 15-in. 

1 Dozen Annealing Clips. 

1000 Scorifiers, 2 y 2 -in. 

400 Ten-gramme Crucibles. 

1 Bosworth Crusher. 

1 Buckboard and Muller. 

1 Pair Scorifier Tongs. 

1 Pair Cupel Tongs. 

2 Twelve-hole Scorifier Molds. 

1 Scorifier Mold, 25-hole. 

1 Crucible Mold, 3-hole. 

1 Cupel Mold, 13/2-in. 

2 Pairs Nickel Pliers. 

1 Pair Slag Pincers. 

1 Pair Button Pliers. 

1 Magnifying Lens. 

1 Tripod. 

2 Slag Hammers. 

1 Sampler and Scoop. 

1 Plattner's Blow Pipe. 

2 Spatulas. 

1 Three-ring Stand. 

1 Burette Stand. 

1 Funnel Stand. 

5 Grammes Platinum Foil and 
Wire. 

1 Diamond Mortar. 

1 Alcohol Lamp (six-burner). 


1 Glass Lamp (four-ounce). 

2 Nests Beakers, Nos. 1 to 6. 

6 Beaker Covers. 

6 Copper Flasks 
6 Parting Flasks. 

2 Wash Bottles complete. 

1 Half-Litre Flask. 

1 Pound Glass Tubing. 

6 Funnels. 

3^2 Pound Cyanide Potash, pure. 

2 Packs Filter Paper. 

1 Lead Measure. 

1 Graduate, 4-oz. 

1 Pipette, 25 c. c. 

1 Cylinder, 50 c. c. graduated. 

1 Burette, G. S., 50 c. c. in ioths. 
1 Color Plate. 

12 Feet Rubber Tubing 
6 Evaporating Dishes. 

3 Casseroles. 

6 Porcelain Crucibles, No. 8. 

1 Camel’s Hair Brush. 

3 Camel’s Hair Pencils. 

1 Buckboard Brush. 

6 Sand Baths, 5-in. 

1 Copper Water Bath. 

1 Anvil Slagging. 

1 Dangler Lamp (gasoline). 

1 Wedgewood Mortar. 

1 Magnet, 5-in. 

1 Set Cork Borers. 

2 Sieves, 60 and 80 mesh. 

3 Clay Triangles. 

1 Test Tube Rack. 

1 Dozen Test Tubes. 

1 Set Reagent Bottles. 

100 Pounds Granulated Lead, c. p. 
25 Pounds Lead Flux. 


150 







i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


LIST OF SUPPLIES FOR ASSAY OUTFIT—Con. 


10 Pounds Soda Bicarbonate. 

100 Pounds Bone Ash. 

25 Pounds Litharge. 

5 Pounds Borax Glass. 

5 Pounds Argols. 

1 Pound Rolled Lead. 

1 Ounce Silver, c. p. 

4 pounds Ammonia Water, strong. 


9 pounds Sulphuric Acid, c. p. 
conct. 

7 Pounds Nitric Acid, c. p. conct. 
12 Pounds Muriatic Acid, c. p. 
conct. 

2 Sheets Copper Foil, c. p. 

1 Box Blank Labels, Gummed. 


The foregoing lists are about as complete as we can make them, 
all things considered and can he modified to suit customers. While 
many of the tools and other articles mentioned are not absolutely essen¬ 
tial, they will be found very convenient and often necessary in case of 
isolated plants—in fact, some things not mentioned may be required. 
The lists, however, will serve the purpose intended and aid in making 
a selection of such tools as are absolutely indispensable. 


Information Desired When Requesting 
Figures on a Smelting Plant for 
either Copper or Lead 

When possible, full information should be given when requesting 
figures on a smelting plant for either copper or lead. 

In order to determine definitely the basis on which to form an in¬ 
telligent estimate, we should have the following information : 

1. Character of the ore to be smelted. 

2. Percentage of Sulphur. 

3. Percentage of Iron and character of same. 

4. Percentage of Silica. 

5. Percentage of Alumina. 

6. Percentage of Zinc. 

7. Percentage of Antimony. 

8. Percentage of Arsenic. 

9. Percentage of Lead, and in what form. 

10. Percentage of Copper, and in what form. 

11. Percentage of Lime. 

12. Percentage of Magnesia. 

13. Is smelter site on level or hill-side? 


151 




i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 

14. What form of power will be used? 

15. Is smelter to be used for custom ore? If so, what propor¬ 
tion of ores will require roasting', if any ? 

16. Does supply water need to be pumped up to tank? 

17. Is ore of such size as to probably require crushing' before 
charging to blast furnace? 

18. If any concentrates, state probable quantity per day. 

19. Are track scales or wagon scales required? 

20. When estimates are wanted on smelting plants erected com¬ 
plete, state probable cost of lumber, red brick, fire brick and 
clay, rubble work, sand per yard, lime and cement, delivered 
at smelter site, and cost of common labor. Also wagon haul 
from nearest railway station to site. 


Parties interested in the smelting of ores are cordially 
invited to visit our works when in Denver. Arriving in 
the city at the Union Station, any car on 17th Street will 
take the visitor direct to our city sales office at 515 17th 
Street. Our up-town office is centrally located and within 
one or two blocks from all the leading hotels. It is hut a 
short trip, about 20 minutes, by car from onr up-town 
office to our works at 33rd and Wynkoop Streets. Parties 
interested in ore reduction machinery and desiring any 
information will be cheerfully supplied with same and 
catalogues given at our city office, and should they desire 
to go out to our works, directions, etc., uill he given by 
any of our city office force. 


152 




Literature Issued by Colorado Iron 

Works Company 


In addition to this Catalogue we issue the following literature 
descriptive of Ore-Milling Machinery and Ore- 
Smelting Equipments 

Catalogue No. 6-B. - “Stamp-Milling Machinery” 

Contains descriptions of the machinery used in modern stamp mills, 
with useful data. 48 pages (illustrated). 

Catalogue No. y-D. - “Concentration Mills and Machinery” 

A complete book of 92 pages, thoroughly describing the machinery and 
equipments for concentrating mills, with general notes on concentration 
and mill building (illustrated). 

Catalogue No. 9..“The Impact Screen” 

This is a little book of 24 pages, descriptive of our Impact Screen, and 
contains letters of indorsement from prominent mill men, drawings show¬ 
ing screen settings and reports on actual work done in various plants 
with this screen. Every mill man operating a screening device should 
have a copy of this book (illustrated). 

Pamphlet No. y-F. - “The Bartlett ‘Simplex’ Concentrator” 

A 12-page booklet (illustrated) describing the latest model Rubber Top 
Bartlett “Simplex” Concentrating Table. 

Catalogue No. 11. ..“ Accessories for Mines’’ 

A 16-page book descriptive of our ore cars, buckets, skips, cages, water 
barrels, turntables, switch castings, etc., etc. (illustrated). 

Catalogue No. 10-A. - “Cyanide Plants, Machinery, Tanks and 

Appliances ” 

This book is divided into three parts. (1) general description of the 
cyanide process ; (2) machinery and appliances used in cyanide plants; 

(3) various types of plants and their operation. 82 pages, complete in 
every detail (illustrated). 


QUARTERLY ANNOUNCEMENT 

‘V 

IN APRIL, JULY, OCTOBER 
AND JANUARY 

We issue a small pamphlet descriptive of new machinery, equipments, etc., in 
our special lines, and also describe our new catalogues, about the 15th of 
the above months. Plants of special interest that v/e have erected are 
described and illustrated from time to time. Send us your name and we 
will mail you a copy of this pamphlet regularly, and you can then keep in 
closer touch with our literature and manufactures. 


252 










i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905; 


INDEX 


Air-blast gates, improved . 

Air-blast in U-pipe stove, data for required heating surface and velocity of 

An oil-stove liot-blast system for copper-matting furnaces. 

. 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 


Page 

103 

29 


Q 6 


Arch bar girder system .11, 12, 

Assay outfit, list of supplies for.150, 

Automatic and mechanically stirred ore-roasting furnace (Gross pat¬ 
ent) .136, 

Automatic dumping car . 

Automatic furnace charging.107, 108, 

Automatic furnace charging (car for).130, 

Ball-bearing turntables . 

Belt-driven hoists . . 

“ Blast furnaces for smelting silver-lead and copper ores’ ’ .7 

“Blast furnaces” (general article).9, 10 , 11 , 

Blast furnaces, interior contour of.47, 48, 49, 50, 

Blast furnace tuyeres .104, 

Blowers .138, 

Bottom dumping car . 

Bowls, slag pot. 

Bruckner roasting cylinder .133, 

Cars, automatic dumping . 

Cars, bottom dumping . 

Cars, square and scoop body . 

Carts, matte . 

Carts, slag . 

Chambers, dust .. 97 , 

Circular furnace hoods . 

Coming improvements in hot-blast smelting.37, 38 

Converters, copper . 140, 

Converter plants .141, 

Coolers, lead . 

Copper converters .140, 

Copper converter plants .141, 

Copper-matting furnaces (half-tone engravings). 

. 46, 76, 77, 78, 78a, 79, 80, 81, 82, 89, 91, 94, 

Copper-matting furnaces (sectional views).73, 75, 83, 84, 85, 86 , 87, 91, 92, 

Copper-matting pyritic smelting . 44 ? 45 ^ 

Copper moulds . 

Cupelling furnaces . 

Customers, some of our, for whom we have built furnaces and equip¬ 
ments .. 


o 

46 

151 

137 

126 

109 

131 

120 

129 

8 

12 

51 

105 

139 

127 

123 

134 

127 

127 

128 
122 
122 
143 

90 

39 

141 

142 
101 

141 

142 

95 

93 

46 

120 

143 


145 


154 









































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. 


— J 9°5 


Cycloidal blowers . ^38 

Cylinder, Bruckner roasting . 233 

Data for required heating surface and velocity of air blast in U-pipe stoves 

Disposition of slag . 209 

Dump cars, side roll . 227 

Dump cars, side, stationary body. 

Dumping cars . 

Dust chamber doors and stacks. 


Dust chambers . 

Elevators, lift . 

End jackets, with curved corners . 

Forehearth, portable . 9S s 99 3 

Forehearths, stationary . 

Furnace charging, automatic dumping car for. 130, 

Furnace charging automatic system for, . 107, 108, 

Furnaces, cupelling . 

Furnace hoods, circular . 

Furnace hoods, portable steel. 


Furnaces, reverberatory (see reverberatory furnaces). 

Furnaces, roasting (see roasting furnaces). 

Furnaces, smelting (see smelting furnaces). 

Gates, improved air blast. 

General plans of smelting plants. 105, 

Gross automatic and mechanically stirred ore-roasting furnace.136, 

Guaranty of efficiency of hot-blast stove using oil fuel. 


Hoists, belt driven. 

Hoists, incline . 

Hoists, paper friction . 

Hoods, circular furnace . 

Hoods, portable steel furnace . 

Hot-blast smelting . 39, 40, 41, 

Hot-blast smelting, coming improvements in .37, 38, 

Hot-blast smelting, some considerations favorable to .... 14, 15, 16, 17, 

.. 18, 19, 20, 

Hot-blast U-pipe stove . 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 

Important notice . 

Improved air blast gates . 

Incline hoists . 


Information desired when requesting figures on a smelting plant. . . . 151, 

Interior contour of blast furnaces . 47, 48, 49, 50, 

Introductory . 

Jackets, end with curved corners. 

Jackets, steel plate water . 

Kettle (or cooler) for lead furnaces . 

Lead coolers . 

Lift elevators .>. 

List of supplies for assay outfit.150, 


Page 

139 

134 

29 

110 

128 

128 

126 

143 

97 

130 
43 

100 

100 

131 
109 
143 

90 

88 


103 

106 

137 

36 

129 

126 

129 

90 

88 

42 

39 


29 

5 

103 

126 

152 

51 

4 

43 

96 

101 

101 

130 

151 


155 











































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Page 

List of tools and supplies for two stack smelter.146, 147, 148, 149 

Literature issued by Colorado Iron Works Co. 153 

Matte carts . 122 

Matte moulds . 121 

Matte settling and separating .124, 125, 126 

Mills, sulphide . 132 

Moulds, copper . 120 


Oil stove, hot-blast system for copper-matting furnaces. 

.30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 


Ore-roasting furnaces .. 

Ore-roasting furnaces (reverberatory) .134, 

Ore-roasting furnaces (Gross automatic) .136, 

Ore-sampling works .131, 

Paper-friction hoists . 

Plans, general, for smelting plants .105, 

Portable forehearths .98, 99, 

Portable steel furnace hoods. 

Proportionate quantity of hot air as compared with cold air involved in 

smelting .21, 22, 23, 

Refining plants . 

Relative size of tuyeres . 

Reverberatory roasting furnace .134, 

Reverberatory smelting furnace ... 

Roasting cylinders (Bruckner) .133, 

Roasting furnace, automatic (Gross patent).136, 

Roasting furnaces . 

Sampling works .131, 

Seales . 

Side dump car, stationary body . 

Side roll dump cars .127, 

Silver-lead smelting furnaces (half-tone engravings of). 

. 57, 58, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 

Silver-lead smelting furnaces, sectional views.59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 

Slag carts . 

Slag-pot bowls . 

Slag trucks .Ill, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 

Smelting an exact science .6, 

Smelting by hot-blast, coming improvements in.37, 38, 

Smelting furnaces, copper-matting (half-tone engravings of). 

. 46, 76, 77, 78, 78a, 79, 80, 81, 82, 89, 91, 94, 

Smelting furnaces copper-matting (section views of). 

.73, 75, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 

Smelting furnaces, reverberatory . 

Smelting furnaces, silver-lead (half-tone engravings). 

. 57, 58, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69^ 70, 71, 

Smelting furnaces, silver-lead (sectional views).59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 

Smelting plants, general plans of .105, 


132 

135 

137 

132 

129 

106 

100 

88 

24 

8 

30 

135 

74 

134 

137 

132 

132 

139 

128 

128 


72 

65 

121 


123 

119 

7 


39 


95 


93 

74 


65 

106 


156 
















































i86o — Colorado Iron Works Co. — 1905 


Page 


Smelting, proportionate quantity of hot air as compared with cold air, in¬ 


volved in .21, 22, 23, 

“Some considerations favorable to liot-blast smelting”.6, 

Some smelter customers and furnaces built by us.144, 


Spouts, furnace trap . 

Square and scoop body cars 

Stationary foreliearth. 

Steel furnace hoods, portable 
Steel plate water jackets . . 
Stop valves in blast pipes . . 


Sulphide mills . 

Tanks . 

Temperature of air blast .51, 

Tonnage capacity .13. 


Tools and supplies, list of for two-stack smelter. 

Trucks, slag .Ill, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 


Turntables, ball bearing . 

Tuyeres, for blast furnaces .104, 

Tuyeres, relative size of. 

U-pipe hot-blast stove.24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 

Valves in blast pipes . 

Vaporization of jacket water.52, 53, 54, 55, 


Vaporizer appliance, lead furnace equipped Avith. 

Vaporizer appliance copper-matting furnaces, equipped with.94, 

Water jackets, steel plate . 

Water jacket vaporization .52, 53, 54, 55, 

Water jackets with curved corners . 


24 

*7 

i 

145 
102 
128 
100 

88 

96 

14 

132 

139 

52 

14 

146 

119 

120 
105 

30 

29 

14 

56 

57 

95 

96 
56 
43 


157 





























H)l M W05 


Carson-Harper Printing 
Denver 















































































































































































































































































































































































































































